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Charles Frohman 

MAUDE ADAMS IN THE CHARACTER OF JEANNE D'ARC 
AT THE HARVARD STADIUM 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

THE STORY OF JEANNE d'ARC 
FOR GIRLS 



BY 
M. S. C. SMITH 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



33Ci 

•Ss 



CoPVEtlGHT, 1919, BY 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 



OCT -9 J9I9 



5)CI.A586105 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 
I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

XI 

XII 
XIII 
XIV 

XV 

XVI 

XVII 

XVIII 



PAGE 

Jeanne's Childhood i 

The Condition of France .... 12 

Visions and Voices 24 

The Dauphin's Only Help ... 37 

On the Road to Chinon .... 51 

The Wonderful Recognition ... 57 

The Maid Raises Her Standard . 68 

The Siege of Orleans 81 

*' Surrender!" 93 

Capture of Saint Loup and the 

AuGusTiNS 104 

"We Shall Enter the Town this Night 

BY THE Bridge" 115 

The Girl General 125 

The Festival of May 8 .... 131 

"Hold no Longer these Many and 

Long Councils" 140 

"To the Assault" of Jargeau . . 149 

"Have All of You Good Spurs?" . 157 

On to Rheims! 164 

The Coronation ....,,. 175 

iii 



IV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

XIX The Peak of the Load . 

XX Before Paris 

XXI Now Here, Now There 

XXII Captured 

XXIII In Captivity 

XXIV Jeanne's Trial .... 
XXV "I Did Them by God's Order 

XXVI Leaping Flames .... 

XXVII Jeanne Comes into her Own 

XXVIII Through the Centuries 

XXIX Jeanne and the Great War 



PAGE 

184 
191 

200 
210 
220 
231 
246 

254 
262 

271, 

282 




THE JEANNE D'ARC COUNTRY 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

CHAPTER I 

JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD 

It was Twelfth Night in Domremy, a little 
French village. Out of doors the winter wind 
chilled the peasants who made their way along 
the narrow streets between the low stone houses. 
The valley mists from the river Meuse, here a 
small stream, swept through the hamlet, tangling 
themselves like silky smoke in the overhanging 
thatch of the cottages. Yet no one seemed to 
mind the cold or the fog, for Epiphany is a time 
for sport and gayety. What did a few shivers 
matter if you could pull your cap over your ears 
and beat your chest till it tingled? And was 
there not plenty of wood in the oak forest — the 
Bois Chesnu — not far off that would make splen- 
did fires to dance around? 

Even the cocks joined in the merriment, for 
they crowed vigorously long before the hour of 
dawn which it is their business in life to an- 



2 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

nounce. Of course there were cross-grained peo- 
ple who said that the cocks were annoyed be- 
cause they were awakened before their usual 
time, but almost everybody thought that this 
Twelfth Night was more hilarious than usual 
and that the cocks joined in the din that cele- 
brated the birth of a daughter to Jacques d'Arc 
and his wife, Isabelle. 

They did not come to that conclusion on that 
night, January 6, 1412. A new baby was no es- 
pecial novelty in any one of the cottages. In- 
deed, this latest arrival already had two broth- 
ers, Jacques and Jean, and a sister Catherine. 
Most of the good folk who danced in the streets 
or sat before the fires in the houses watching 
their own shadows play grotesquely on the walls 
as they sipped a hot drink and ate a cake, did 
not know that the population of the village had 
been increased. But some seventeen or eigh- 
teen years later, when Jacques d'Arc's daughter 
led armies against the enemies of her king, they 
liked to think that there had been wonderful 
happenings on the birthnight of Jeanne d'Arc, 
the Maid of Orleans. 

To know something about the childhood of 
the great people of the earth is always delightful 
because it seems to give us who are not great or 
wonderful a feeling of intimacy with them. To 
understand that they played games and did daily 



JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD 3 

tasks and learned lessons and even had illnesses 
like those we have had ourselves makes them 
seem not so far away from us. We like to know 
that Washington was a strong, sturdy boy; that 
before he was thirteen he had copied neatly into 
a blank book a great many forms such as law- 
yers and merchants use, and, a little later on, a 
set of ^^rules for behavior in company and con- 
versation." We like to know that he took a great 
interest in military affairs because his elder 
brother was a soldier, and that he drilled and 
led his schoolmates. It seems to show that even 
then he had the instinct for leadership that was 
to make him one of the famous generals of the 
world. 

When we read of Lincoln as one of our most 
illustrious presidents, he seems so burdened with 
duties and responsibilities that we cannot come 
near to him. But when we read of his boyhood 
days he seems like some boy we might know 
ourselves if we lived in the same sort of country. 
We can see him growing up in a Kentucky cabin 
with great trees around it, plowing the ground 
for his father, hoeing corn and harvesting it, and 
cutting wood for his mother's fire. When we 
learn that he was willing to walk many miles 
to get a book and that he read it night after 
night, sitting in the corner of the fireplace with 
the flames from the fire his only light, we see 



4 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

that even when very young he showed the pa- 
tience and perseverance that helped him through 
the great tasks of his later life. 

Washington and Lincoln lived in compara- 
tively recent times. It has been easy for the 
people who wrote the stories of their lives to se- 
cure information about them. Jeanne d'Arc 
lived more than five hundred years ago when 
fewer books were written and fewer records 
kept. We do not know much about her girl- 
hood except what she herself told her judges 
when she was being tried after her king's ene- 
mies had captured her, and what some of her 
neighbors in and around Domremy said in an- 
swer to questions asked about her some twenty- 
five years after her death. 

We do know, however, about the district 
where she lived. Not many miles from Chau- 
mont, where General Pershing established the 
American headquarters during the Great War, 
rises the river Meuse. It flows north with many 
bends and twists through a valley two or three 
miles wide. Leaving behind the town of Neuf- 
chateau, it passes the castle of Bourlemont, 
whose lord, when Jeanne was born, was the feu- 
dal proprietor of all the country round. Then 
it comes to the little villages of Domremy and 
Greux, side by side on the left bank, almost fac- 
ing Maxey on the right bank, and then it goes 



JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD 5 

on by some hamlets to the walled town of Vau- 
couleurs. This short stretch of about twenty 
miles was the scene of all the events of Jeanne's 
childhood. 

The good folk who lived along the river were 
acquaintances. From Neufchateau came one of 
Jeanne's godfathers and one of her godmothers 
when she was baptized in the parish church of 
Domremy by the parish priest. One of the god- 
fathers was from Greux, and two, at least, of the 
godmothers lived in Domremy, while one was 
the wife of the secretary of the lords of Bourle- 
mont. 

Not one of the long list of sponsors is men- 
tioned as being from Maxey. That was because 
the folk of the left and right banks were always 
quarreling over politics. Jacques d'Arc and his 
friends belonged to the Armagnac party and the 
Maxey people to the Burgundian party. Many 
of the Domremy people found it convenient, 
however, to send their boys across the river to 
learn in the Maxey school what little was taught 
to peasants in those days. 

American soldiers who were quartered in this 
part of France can bear witness to the old saying 
that the peasants of this section ^'seldom die, 
never lie." They live to a great age and are 
hard-working and serious. But the children are 
happy and friendly, and we may imagine that, 



6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

though we do not know anything about Jeanne 
for several years after her baptism, she was not 
unlike the children of to-day, smiling and cheer- 
ful. As a baby she probably rolled about her 
father's house, chasing the hens and chickens to 
the dung-heap that is the peasants' pride, or tod- 
dling unsteadily after the little pigs that play 
an important part in their prosperity. American 
soldiers will not fail to testify to the fact that 
she must have had plenty of mud to make mud 
pies with. In the summer the river bank fur- 
nished a delightful playground for her and her 
brothers and sisters and her little friends, Men- 
gette, who lived next door, and Hauviette. 

Farmhouses as we see them in America, 
standing alone in their fields, were not known in 
France in Jeanne's time, nor are they now. For 
protection against enemies the peasants gathered 
in centers around which lay their pastures and 
tilled fields, and this system and many of these 
same villages exist to-day. The sheep of all the 
villagers were driven to a common within sight 
of the town so that help could reach them quick- 
ly if a band of raiders should happen to sweep 
through the country. The village children 
watched the sheep and drove the cattle to the 
meadows by the river, but Jeanne herself said 
that when she was small she did not share this 
task. She did recall helping drive them to the 



JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD 7 

pastures around the Castle on the Island in the 
river opposite Domremy, 'Vhen I was bigger 
and had come to years of discretion." That must 
have been when she was eight years old or after, 
for it was at that time that her father and some 
of his neighbors hired these protected pastures 
to shelter their creatures against marauding sol- 
diers. 

The swine were taken to the Bois Chesnu to 
root for acorns all day long. This oak forest 
was over a mile from Domremy, though it could 
be seen from Jacques d'Arc's house. It was said 
to be the home of wolves, so it must have been 
the larger boys or the men who looked after the 
pigs while the women and young girls attended 
to duties nearer home. Like all the others, 
Jeanne followed the plow in the fields, and in 
the house she learned to spin hemp and wool 
and sew so well that she even boasted gently 
of her accomplishments to the judges at her trial. 

"In sewing and spinning I fear no woman in 
Rouen," she said. 

There were reasons other than the fear of 
wolves to keep timid little girls from going alone 
to the Bois Chesnu. It was said that fairies lived 
there. Everybody at that time knew that fairies 
had to be treated with respect. If they were not 
they often became very mischievous, tweaking 
the good housewife's fingers so that she broke 



8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

the dishes she was handling, or making the fire 
burn so hotly that the dinner was spoiled. When 
the old dog growls in his sleep are you perfectly 
sure that the fairies are not pinching him? The 
peasants of Domremy were not sure and they 
used to try to be especially friendly to the little 
people and lay out dainties for them when a new 
baby came so that they would not tease the help- 
less newcomer but would present him witji gifts 
that would make him prosperous and mppy. 
Fairies are so tiny that of course you cannot al- 
ways tell whether you are really seeing oi^ or 
not. Jeanne said that as far as she knew, she 
never had seen any fairies either in the Bois 
Chesnu or anywhere else. 

Between the oak forest and the village there 
was a beech called the Fairies' Tree. In the 
spring it was especially lovely, its branches and 
leaves flowing to the ground, and it is no won- 
der that many of the old people believed that so 
beautiful a spot should be the chosen dwelling- 
place of the fairies. One of Jeanne's godmothers 
told her that she had seen fairies there, but 
Jeanne seems to have thought she was just pre- 
tending. 

The tree belonged to the lords of Bourlemont, 
and it was called the Fairies' Tree because in 
the olden days when people thought they were 
perfectly sure about there actually being fairies, 



JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD 9 

a certain lord of Bourlemont, Pierre by name, 
used to meet a fairy lady under the tree. The 
lord of Bourlemont, when Jeanne was a baby, 
was another Pierre, and he and his wife, Bea- 
trix, used to go to the Tree every year on the 
fourth Sunday in Lent, called Laetare Sunday, 
and sometimes in the spring and summer on 
festival days. They took their guests with them 
and often some of the village children, and had 
a picnic under the tree, eating cakes and nuts 
and then refreshing themselves from a spring 
near by, the Spring of the Thorn. 

This Pierre de Bourlemont died when Jeanne 
was a tiny child and his castle on the Island in 
the river was inherited by his niece, who was 
married to a lord who lived at some distance, 
in the city of Nancy. So the great people came 
no more to the Tree, but the village folk con- 
tinued to do so for long years, and Jeanne with 
them. They sang songs and played games and 
danced about the Tree, and hung garlands on its 
sweeping branches. Sometimes they took the 
garlands away, sometimes they left them sway- 
ing in the breeze. Sometimes they carried them 
to the church and offered them to Our Lady of 
Domremy. 

The spring near the Tree gave forth sweet, 
cool water and people ill of the fever went there 
to drink, and after they were well again they 



lo THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

went back to drink once more of the draught that 
cured them and to walk under the shade of the 
beech tree. Jeanne was not sure that it was the 
water that had healed them, but she often saw 
them walking near the Tree. 

As for the fairies, the priests did their best 
to discourage them, for several times a year they 
went across the pastures about the town, and vis- 
ited the Fairies' Tree and the Well of the Thorn, 
all the time chanting the Gospel of St. John. 
Some people thought that they had succeeded in 
driving them away even in Jeanne's time. 

So, just as we know something about the child- 
hood of Washington and of Lincoln and feel 
a friendliness for them on account of it, it makes 
us really acquainted with Jeanne d'Arc to know 
that she was a good little girl, obedient to her 
parents, well taught in the customary household 
and out-of-door duties, although she could 
neither read nor write, industrious and gay like 
the other children. Kind-hearted, too, for she 
helped nurse the neighbors when they were ill 
and she gave alms to the poor and money to the 
church for the saying of masses. 

If that were all we should say that, unlike 
Washington and Lincoln, she did not show any 
early signs of the qualities that made her famous 
later on. 

But she differed from the other children in 



JEANNE'S CHILDHOOD ii 

being far more religious. Sometimes when her 
mother thought she was in the fields with the 
cattle she had slipped away to pray in the 
church. She went to mass every day, and she 
promised the old bell-ringer, who sometimes for- 
got to ring for the services, some of the wool 
from her flock if he would be less careless about 
doing his duty. 

^'She was a good girl, simple and pious," her 
friend Mengette said in describing her years 
later; "so much so that I and her companions 
told her she was too pious." 

Not too pious to be practical and full of well- 
laid plans when the time came for her to go into 
the world. It was her piety, her deep religious 
feeling, her faith, that made her accomplish suc- 
cessfully the task she set herself. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 



The Domremy children went across the river 
to the Maxey school, and they also went across 
to fight with the Maxey children because they 
were Burgundians. Jeanne did not join these 
warlike parties, but she often saw her friends 
come home wounded and bleeding. As soon as 
she learned that the Burgundians were opposed 
to her king, whose followers were Armagnacs 
of the south of France, she ceased to love what 
Burgundians she knew. There was one Burgun- 1 
dian in Domremy, and though she talked to him 
and even hinted at her mission, she would not 
have cared if they had cut off his head, she said, 
in very much the same exaggerated way that 
American girls use to express dislike. 

The country that we know as France was not 
all called France in Jeanne's day. That name 
was given to a comparatively small district 
around Paris and the rest of the country was 
divided into dukedoms and counties — of Aqui- 
tania, of Burgundy, of Normandy, of Gascony, 

12 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 13 

and so on. Domremy lay partly in Lorraine and 
partly in Champagne and Bar, a brook flowing 
through the village being the dividing line, and 
Jeanne spoke of "going into France" as we Am- 
ericans speak of going into another state of the 
Union. 

When Jeanne was born, the Hundred Years' 
War had been going on for seventy-five years. 
The struggle arose out of the claim made by an 
English king upon the lands and the throne of 
France, and at the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury the whole country was split into parties 
fighting against each other, murdering their ene- 
mies and burning their castles. Bands of armed 
men, out for whatever they could get, roamed 
the land, and of all these freebooters those of 
the Lorraine border were considered to be 
among the roughest. 

The king of France was Charles VI. He had 
come to the throne when only twelve years old 
and the kingdom was ruled by his three uncles. 
They were all selfish and violent men, utterly 
without principle, stopping at nothing that 
would give them money or power. The strong- 
est of them was the Duke of Burgundy, Philip 
the Bold, and he encouraged the young king's 
gayeties and extravagances, and taught him noth- 
ing at all of the business of being a king. 

When Charles was sixteen years old and his 



14 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

bride but fifteen, the King married Isabeau 
of Bavaria and the young pair revived old sports 
and jousts and the games of chivalry and cele- 
brated every imaginable event with banquets and 
dancing. Five years after the marriage, Queen 
Isabeau made a triumphal entry into Paris. She 
had been there many times before, so that this 
was merely a new festivity and not the "First 
Entry," as it was called. 

According to an old historian, "the noble 
ladies who were to accompany the queen assem- 
bled at Saint Denis. The citizens of Paris to the 
number of twelve hundred were mounted on 
horseback dressed in uniforms of green and crim- 
son, and lined each side of the road. 

"The Queen of France began the procession 
in an open litter most richly ornamented. A 
crowd of nobles attended, and sergeants and 
others of the King's officers had full employment 
in making way for the procession, for there were 
such numbers assembled that it seemed as if all 
the world had come thither. At the gate of Saint 
Denis was the representation of a starry fiarma- 
ment, and within it were children dressed as an- 
gels, whose singing and chanting was melodi- 
ously sweet. The queen, after passing them, ad- 
vanced slowly to the fountain in the street of 
Saint Denis, which was decorated with fine blue 
cloth besprinkled over with golden flowers-de- 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 15 

luce. Around the fountain were young girls 
handsomely dressed, who sang most sweetly. Be- 
low the monastery of the Trinity a scaffold had 
been erected in the streets, and on it a castle, 
with a representation of the battle with King 
Saladin, performed by living actors, the Chris- 
tians on one side and the Saracens on the other. 
The procession then passed on to the second gate 
of Saint Denis, which was adorned as the first; 
and as the queen was going through the gate two 
angels descended and gently placed on her head 
a rich golden crown ornamented with precious 
stones. 

^'Opposite the chapel of Saint James a scaffold 
had been erected, richly decorated with tapestry 
and surrounded with curtains, within which 
were men who played finely on organs. The 
queen and her ladies arrived at length at the 
gate of the Chatelet, where they stopped to see 
other splendid pageants that had been prepared. 
The queen and her attendants now passed on to 
the bridge of Notre Dame, which was covered 
with a starry canopy of green and crimson, and 
the streets were all hung with tapestry as far as 
the church. As the queen was passing down the 
street of Notre Dame, a man descended by means 
of a rope from the highest tower of Notre Dame 
church, having two lighted torches in his hands, 
and playing many tricks as he came down. The 



i6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Bishop of Paris met the queen at the entrance 
of the church, and conducted her through the 
nave and choir to the great altar, where she pre- 
sented as her offering the handsome crown which 
the angels had put on her head at the gate of 
Paris. The Lord John de la Riviere and Sir 
John le Mercier instantly brought one more rich 
with which they crowned her. When this was 
done, she and her ladies left the church, and, as 
it was late, upwards of five hundred lighted 
tapers attended the procession. 

"On the morrow the king gave a grand din- 
ner to a numerous company of ladies. Shortly 
after mass the king, queen, and all the ladies en- 
tered the hall ; and you must know that the great 
marble table which is in the hall was covered 
with oaken planks four inches thick, and the 
royal dinner placed thereon. The kings, pre- 
lates, and ladies, having washed, seated them- 
selves at the tables ; but the crowd was so great 
that it was with difficulty they could be served 
with dinner, which indeed was plentiful and 
sumptuous. There were so many people on all 
sides that several were stifled by the heat, and 
the queen herself almost fainted. On Tuesday 
many superb presents were made to the King and 
Queen of France. This day the king and queen 
dined in private, for at three o'clock the tourna- 
ment was to take place in the square of Saint 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 17 

Catherine, where scaffolds had been erected for 
the accommodation of the queen and the ladies. 
The knights who took part in this tournament 
were thirty in number, including the king; and 
when the jousts began they were carried on with 
great vigor, every one performing his part in 
honor of the ladies. The number of knights 
made it difficult to give a full stroke, and the 
dust was so troublesome that it increased the 
difficulty. The tilts were conducted without re- 
laxation until night, when the ladies were con- 
ducted to their hotels. Feasting and dancing 
lasted till sunrise, and the prize of the tourna- 
ment was given to the king as being the best 
tilter on the opponent side." 

While these expensive amusements were go- 
ing on, the peasants in many places were starv- 
ing, and the people of the large cities were 
deprived of their rights and were consequently 
ready to fight or to murder whenever there was 
an opportunity. The army was the king's, and 
he, or rather his guardians, used it to terrorize 
and slay until those already poor were living 
like animals and the townspeople were reduced 
to poverty. Nor did their money go into the 
king's treasury, but into those of the Dukes and 
their friends. 

Three years after Queen Isabeau's "First En- 
try" into Paris the king became insane, and 



ii8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

never after was entirely well, though he had 
lucid intervals. During these times of respite 
from his tormenting disease he always tried to 
do some good for his subjects, and so he gained 
the affection of his people and the nickname of 
the ^Well-Beloved" after it was too late for 
any profit to result from their kindly relations. 

Of course the king's incapacity meant that 
the kingdom was more than ever in the control 
of the unscrupulous members of his family, 
among whom must be counted his wife. Queen 
Isabeau. She was very friendly with the king's 
brother, the Duke of Orleans, but instead of 
their working together for the benefit of the 
kingdom, they chiefly carried on their private 
quarrels with Philip the Bold of Burgundy and 
his son, John the Fearless. Indeed, whenever 
they tried to do something for Charles, as when 
they undertook to carry on the war with Eng- 
land, the Burgundians set the people against 
them by declaring that the taxes levied to cover 
the expenses of the war were in reality levied 
for the private benefit of the Duke of Orleans 
and the queen. 

Naturally, the English took advantage of the 
internal troubles of France and bands of Eng- 
lish landed here and there and there was some 
sea fighting. After a time the Burgundians 
allied themselves with the English and the Or- 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 19 

leanists united with the followers of the Count 
of Armagnac, a noble of the south of France. 
Philip the Bold's son, John the Fearless, caused 
the assassination of Louis of Orleans. The little 
house where he was dining with Queen Isabeau 
when he was called out to be hacked to pieces 
is still to be seen in a crowded quarter of old 
Paris. It has a tiny, picturesque tower jut- 
ting out from an upper story, and we can fancy 
the gay Duke stepping out of the door into the 
narrow street and being cut to pieces by swords 
and daggers, while a flight of arrows, tapping 
threateningly against the shutters of adjoining 
houses, warned the neighbors that it would be 
wise for them not to look forth. 

Isabeau favored now the Burgundians, now 
the Armagnacs, as she thought she might gain 
some profit. The country was torn by civil war. 
It seemed to the people, however, not like fight- 
ing against their own country-folk, because the 
language spoken in the north of France was 
quite different from that of the south, and also 
because there were many adventurers from other 
countries in the armies of both sides, and bands 
from Flanders and Italy and Germany speaking 
their own tongues and not French of any kind. 
Apparently every section and almost every com- 
munity was fighting against every other section 
and community. There was none of that love 



20 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

of country, of ''la patrie," which has made the 
French fight as one man against the foe in the 
Great War just finished. That united love for 
a united country was to grow out of what Jeanne 
d'Arc did for her king. 

When Jeanne was three years old, Charles VI 
was thoroughly defeated at Agincourt by Henry 
V of England, who sent over an army to assist 
the Burgundians. The account of the battle 
makes us realize that at least the soil of France 
has not changed its quality in the last five hun- 
dred years. The English bowmen were so ham- 
pered by the mud that they threw away every- 
thing they could, even their breeches, to lighten 
the weight they had to carry. The Frenchmen 
were mounted, and the poor horses, laden with 
their own armor and the heavy steel of their 
riders' equipment, were mired and could not 
charge. The result was that the French were an 
easy mark for their opponents' cruel steel shafts, 
which pierced the slits in their visors and the 
joints where arm-pieces and breastplates joined. 

The outcome of the battle left France at the 
mercy of the English. Henry laid claim to the 
throne of France, and his claim received as seri- 
ous attention as if Charles VTs eldest living son, 
the Dauphin, later Charles VII, Jeanne's king, 
had no rights at all. The struggle between the 
Burgundians and the Armagnacs continued with 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 21 

increased ferocity. In Paris there were constant 
street fights and many a man got rid of a per- 
sonal enemy by crying ^^Armagnac" as he passed 
him on the street, thus causing him to be at- 
tacked by Burgundians, who did not stop to in- 
vestigate the merits of the case. During these 
incessant quarrels the Dauphin was driven out 
of Paris and was not able to return for nine- 
teen years. 

A few months later an attempt was made to 
end the dispute between the Dauphin and his 
cousin, John the Fearless. They met in a room 
built for the occasion on a bridge in the town 
of Montereau, each attended by several gentle- 
men. Perhaps they had not been very serious 
about bringing about an agreement. At any rate 
angry words soon broke out and the Duke of 
Burgundy was murdered as brutally as his 
cousin, the Duke of Orleans, had been. 

Of course this assassination put an end to all 
thoughts of reconciliation between the Dauphin 
and the Burgundians. Queen Isabeau thought it 
prudent to side against her son, and in the Treaty 
of Troyes made with the English the next year, 
she and the king — though of course he may not 
have known what he was doing — disinherited 
him and declared that the heir to the throne of 
France was Henry V of England. Henry mar- 
ried the French princess, Catherine, and invaded 



22 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

France more like a wrongfully dispossessed heir 
come to claim his own than like the pretender he 
was. 

It was at about this time that Jacques d'Arc 
and his neighbors arranged to pasture their cat- 
tle in the sheltered fields of the Castle on the 
Island "for fear of the soldiers." Bands of ma- 
rauders scoured the country not only to get what 
booty they could, but to secure food from the 
peasants, who raised grain and cattle and swine. 
Famine was in the cities. In Paris the plague 
followed upon the famine and scores died daily 
in the streets and their bodies were left unburied, 
creating more illness. Starving wolves came 
into the city and devoured the corpses. When 
any attempt at burial was made bodies were 
packed thirty and forty into a grave. 

Henry V and Charles VI died within a few 
weeks of each other. Henry's baby son, Henry 
VI of England, was declared king of France at 
the tomb of Charles VI, and the Duke of Bed- 
ford ruled the northern part of France as regent 
The south of France got on as best it could, for 
the Dauphin Charles, who should have been 
crowned as Charles VII, remained uncrowned 
and allowed himself to be managed by unscrupu- 
lous favorites. Their chief desire seemed to be 
to keep him amused, and they showed but little 
energy in fighting his enemies or in forwarding 



THE CONDITION OF FRANCE 23 

his rights. By his enemies he was nicknamed 
the ^^King of Bourges." 

To be sure, they brought over some Scots 
who aided them to win one great victory but who 
suffered an equally great defeat, that at Verneuil. 
The news of this disaster spread through the 
country by means of the channels of informa- 
tion usual at that time. Mendicant friars, ped- 
dlers, the very bands that galloped about the 
country burning and looting — all told what they 
had heard here and there of the clash of the 
armies. Undoubtedly that mysterious means of 
communication, called in remote American 
places the "grapevine telegraph," the same 
means by which the news of the Indian Mutiny 
was known by distant tribesmen long before the 
messenger arrived, did its part in spreading the 
tidings of victory and defeat. In whatever way 
the intelligence was published, Jeanne knew of 
the "pity that was in France" soon after the de- 
feat of her Dauphin at Verneuil, for it was then 
that she felt the first impulse to take aid to the 
man in whose veins flowed the sacred blood of 
Saint Louis. 



CHAPTER III 

VISIONS AND VOICES 

Jacques D^ Arc's house was next to the church, 
with only the graveyard between. From her 
earliest walking days Jeanne toddled across the 
threshold and into the dusky coolness, where 
bright colored windows drew her eyes and pic- 
tured for her stories from the Bible and incidents 
in the lives of the saints. 

At that time the church was the chief teacher. 
Not many people besides the monks and priests 
and a comparatively few learned folk knew even 
how to read and write, as almost every one does 
in these days of schools supported by the people 
or the government. There were very few books, 
and those that did exist were large and heavy 
and on very serious subjects. So it is not surpris- 
ing that what the peasants heard from the ser- 
mons in the pulpits of their churches took the 
place of what teachers to-day tell their pupils 
from their school platforms, and that the gay 
windows of churches stood to the worshipers in 
the church below as the pictures in readers and 
histories do to us to-day. 

24 



VISIONS AND VOICES 25 

The subjects of the sermons that Jeanne heard 
in the village church included accounts of the 
lives of many saints, with lessons of persever- 
ance and of endurance drawn from their be- 
havior when they met the death of martyrdom. 
The archangel Michael was well known because 
he was the patron saint of the nearby duchy of 
Bar, and his figure, in armor and with wings, 
carrying a sword or balances for the weighing 
of souls, was carved against the walls or pillars 
or was depicted in the windows of many 
churches. He was always young and radiant and 
strong, a sight to arouse every one's admiration. 

Isabelle d'Arc taught Jeanne her creed and 
her ''Our Father" and her ''Hail Mary," and 
brought her up to pay heed to the teachings of 
the clergy. Probably the other children of 
Domremy had the same instruction, but the seed 
fell on fertile ground in Jeanne's mind, for she 
was naturally of a religious disposition. What 
was a duty to others was a delight to her. To 
kneel in the church and listen to the mass or to 
fasten her eyes on a picture of Saint Catherine 
or Saint Margaret and let the beauty of their 
lives and of their sacrifice sink into her heart 
was a spiritual joy to her. 

Sometimes the young people of the village 
would tease Jeanne about her piety, though they 
themselves, carrying flowers and garlands, often 



26 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

went on short pilgrimages to the Hermitage of 
the Blessed Mary of Bermont not far from Dom- 
remy, and Jeanne went with them. She con- 
fessed often and she received the sacrament at 
Easter. With her the outer forms of the church 
truly represented her profound religious feel- 
ing. Prayer with her was not a matter of the 
lips but in very truth the ^^souFs sincere desire." 
She was just and honorable and truthful, re- 
ligion flowering in her daily living. Time 
proved that she was not a mystic wrapped in 
contemplation of sacred things and doing noth- 
ing, but a person who put her belief into vigor- 
ous action. 

It was when she was about thirteen years old 
that she first heard the Voices that commanded 
her to order her life well and named her mission 
to her. The Voices came to her at noon in her 
father's garden. She had been with the other 
children on the common watching the sheep. 
Some one suggested a foot race, and the girls 
threw off their heavy shoes and rushed across 
the pasture. Jeanne won, running so fast that 
one of the girls told her she looked as if she 
were flying. 

While she was resting, panting and weary, 
a boy said to her, ^^Go home, Jeanne, your 
mother needs you." So Jeanne went home, only 
to find that her mother had not sent for her and 



VISIONS AND VOICES 27 

was displeased that she had deserted her sheep. 

She was about to return to the fields when, as 
she stood in the garden with the flowers and 
shrubs around her and the fruit trees bending 
their branches over her head, she saw a brilliant 
light on the side toward the church. Almost 
at once out of the midst of the light there came 
a Voice. 

Of course Jeanne was startled and afraid. 
She stood still and listened, her dark head 
thrown back and her eyes raised. The Voice 
was so impressive that she believed it to be the 
voice of God. It bade her be good and go often 
to church. 

"It was Saint Michael ; he was not alone, but 
quite surrounded by the Angels of Heaven," she 
explained to her examiners long afterwards. 
She never mentioned her saints by name to her 
comrades or the soldiers or her confessors. 

"Did you see Saint Michael and these Angels 
bodily and in reality?" 

"I saw them with my bodily eyes as well as I 
see you; when they went from me I wept. I 
should have liked to be taken away with them." 

"And what was Saint Michael like?" 

"You will have no more answer from me; 
and I am not yet free to tell you." 

It was not long before the Voice told her of 
duties more serious than going to church, which, 



28 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

in truth, she always had done. It told her of 
her life's work. 

'^It said to me two or three times a week, ^You 
must go into France/ " she afterwards declared. 

A French poet has written some lines de- 
scriptive of this period of Jeanne's life: 

JEANNETTE SEWING* 

Close by devout Isabella Romee 

Bends the fresh cheek of the little Jeannette 

Over the cloth where her thread runs the vray 
Her fleet-flying fingers and needle have set. 

April, fair lord, can the branch touch Vi^ith gold; 

So, though a child, virile strength had the maid 
Sports to disdain, and in dreams ever bold 

The ruin that threatened the kingdom she stayed. 

Softly the mother oft blessed the sweet child ; 

Sometimes a bird's laughing note, bursting free, 
Blended with God's peace the peace of the wild, 

The sky blue as myrtle bent o'er the Spring lea. 

Jeanne, in the azure-hued garden of light, 

Dreams a bright blade has been placed in her hand 
By Michael, the angel who vindicates right. 
To serve as a needle to mend her torn land. 

The idea of going "into France" was quite new 
to her. She was only a child. Why should she 

* By Charles Silvestre. English rendering by Ethel G. Stowe. 



VISIONS AND VOICES 29 

make so dangerous a journey? How was she to 
accomplish it? She could find no answers; she 
shrank from the thought of so dangerous an ex- 
pedition. Yet always the Voices repeated the 
same command, ^'You must go into France." 

"Voices," for there was more than one Voice 
now. With Saint Michael came Saint Catherine 
and Saint Margaret. 

"I know them well because they were named 
to me," she said, and she described them. "Their 
faces are adorned with beautiful crowns, very 
rich and precious. I do not speak of the rest 
of their clothing: I know nothing of their 
dresses. They speak very well and in very good 
language. The Voice is beautiful, sweet, and 
low; it speaks the French tongue." 

"Does not Saint Margaret speak English?" 
some one asked. 

This inquiry raises the question as to whether 
the examiners did not think that the Saint Mar- 
garet who appeared to Jeanne was Saint Mar- 
garet of Scotland, the queen of Malcolm Can- 
more. The fair young Saxon girl, with her 
brother, fled from England to the north at the 
time of the Norman Conquest. Marrying the 
king, she brought an influence of refinement 
into the rough Scottish court and at last con- 
verted the country to the Roman church. 
The Scots were friendly with the Armagnacs, 



30 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

and had sent soldiers into France to fight for the 
Dauphin, and Jeanne might have known about 
Saint Margaret. It does not contradict the idea 
that she replied, ^'Why should she speak Eng- 
lish when she is not on the English side?" The 
meaning of the messages to Jeanne was impressed 
upon her spirit, and her own thoughts translated 
them into French, the only language she knew. 
The same explanation would apply to words of 
Saint Margaret of Antioch, who is generally 
supposed to be the saint who appeared to Jeanne, 
for how would she, a maiden of Antioch, know 
French? 

It was probably, however, the latter saint who 
guided the young peasant girl, for she was a 
friendly saint to people of low degree and there 
was a picture of her in almost every church. 
She helped peasants in time of trouble with their 
homely tasks in the house and in the fields and 
women in pain and sickness. Her story was that 
of a young girl who was secretly baptized a 
Christian by her nurse. One day the governor 
of Antioch, where she lived, saw her and wished 
to marry her. When she told him she was a 
Christian, his love turned to loathing and he 
threw her into prison instead. Then he com- 
manded her to be beaten with rods, and so thor- 
oughly did the torturers do their work that the 
onlookers could not help weeping at her agony. 



VISIONS AND VOICES 31 

When she was led back to prison a fearful 
dragon rushed at her and seized her in his horrid 
jaws, but she made the sign of the cross and his 
back split open and she came forth unhurt. In 
the pictures of the saint a bit of her dress is 
shown hanging from the beast's mouth to prove 
that she went through this awful trial. 

Brought before judges, she was put to the tor- 
ture, but she showed no suffering, and the people 
so marvelled at her fortitude that she was con- 
demned to lose her head lest they become con- 
verted by the extraordinary sight. When her 
soul was loosed, it flew to heaven in the shape 
of a dove. 

With Saint Catherine of Alexandria, after 
whom Jeanne's sister was named, she must have 
been very familiar. 

''My comfort comes from Saint Catherine and 
Saint Margaret," she said at one time, and at 
another she described how she was guided. 
"When I make a request to Saint Catherine, both 
my saints make request to Our Lord; then, by 
order of Our Lord, they give answer to me." 

The story of Saint Catherine was one to stir 
the imagination of any young girl. She was a 
princess, skilled in the arts and in embroidery, 
and as lovely as a king's daughter in a tale. Like 
all princesses, she had many suitors, but not one 



32 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

of them was grand enough for so talented and 
beautiful a lady. 

One night she had a dream of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary, who held the Child Jesus and 
asked him, ''Will you have Catherine for your 
bride?" And he said, "No, she is a worshiper 
of idols. But if she shall consent to be baptized, 
then will I put the nuptial ring on her finger." 

So Catherine was baptized by a holy hermit 
and soon after there appeared to her a vision of 
Lord Jesus amid saints and angels, and he placed 
the nuptial ring on her finger to indicate that 
there was a spiritual union between them. 

Then followed hard days for the princess. 
For the Emperor Maxentius took offense at her 
objections to his ordering his people to sacrifice 
to idols and he bade learned men argue with 
her and convince her that she was mistaken in 
becoming a Christian. When she was afraid to 
stand before fifty of the most learned men of 
the world. Saint Michael appeared to her and 
promised her that she should come victorious 
out of the debate. And so it proved, for the 
learned men were themselves converted by the 
arguments of the royal maiden. Then, indeed, 
the emperor was exceedingly angry and ordered 
all the wise men burned. A vast throng saw 
the deed done, yet none saw even their garments 
or the hairs of their heads hurt by the flames. 



VISIONS AND VOICES 33 

Then Maxentius tried to make Catherine re- 
nounce her religion by promising to raise a sta- 
tue to her in the market place that the people 
might worship it, but the princess rejected the 
offer as one that would lead her to sin. After 
that the emperor tried to break her spirit by 
fear and torture, and he caused her to be beaten 
and starved and shut up in a dungeon. But she 
could not be injured, for a dove^ brought her 
food and angels healed her hurts. 

While Maxentius was on a journey, the em- 
press went to visit Catherine in her cell, and 
became converted by her to the Christian faith. 
This was the cause of her own martyrdom. For 
the emperor ordered that Catherine should be 
lashed upon spiked wheels and this in a public 
place where all might see. But the victim was 
uninjured, for angels broke the wheel and the 
fragments flew into the crowd and killed many 
of the onlookers. Then the empress took her 
husband to task for his attempted murder, and 
he, in his fury at her refusal to sacrifice to his 
idols, sent her to be tortured and then beheaded, 
and the officer of his court who gave her burial 
was killed and his body thrown to the dogs. 

Catherine was unshaken in her determination 
not to sacrifice to the emperor's idols, so she went 
fearlessly to the place of execution outside the 
city of Alexandria. One prayer she made, ask- 



34 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS 



ing Jesus that if any should ask his aid when 
in peril, recalling her martyrdom the while, he 
would give help. 

A fitting saint, Catherine of Alexandria, to 
watch over Jeanne the peasant girl who, like her, 
defended herself against many learned men, and 
who, like her, met the death of a martyr. When 
she was being bound to the stake, Jeanne called 
upon Saint Catherine, who had promised to ease 
the pain of all who suffered at the hands of 
others. While the flames crackled around her, 
she called upon Saint Catherine. 

After Jeanne first heard the Voices they came 
to her ears repeatedly, and always with the same 
command. She must be good and go to church 
and she must go into France. Such constant 
communication with the saints made her more 
serious than the other young girls. It was then 
she gave up dancing, though always she joined 
the rest when they sang. She pondered long on 
what was meant by the strange command to go 
into France. 

Everything in Jeanne's after life shows that 
she was intelligent to a noteworthy degree. She 
could draw conclusions. News of what was go- 
ing on in France came to Domremy. In some 
parts of the country the farmers dared to work 
only under the shelter of the walls of the nearest 
castle. Watchmen stationed in the towers of 



VISIONS AND VOICES 35 

the churches gave warning of the approach of 
plunderers by sounding a horn or ringing the 
bell, and the cattle, taught by stern experience, 
scampered to shelter of their own accord. There 
was a raid upon Maxey, just across the river, 
wherein the husband of one of Jeanne's god- 
mothers was taken prisoner. 

From all these happenings Jeanne knew the 
condition of France, its poverty and its turmoil. 
She knew that her prince, the Dauphin Charles, 
had not been crowned king. To her he never 
could truly be king until he had had the crown 
placed on his head in the cathedral at Rheims 
and had been anointed with the holy oil. 

The necessity for this consecration was deeply 
rooted in Jeanne's belief. For Dom-Remy got 
its name from Saint Remy, Archbishop of 
Rheims, who had baptized Clovis when he be- 
came a convert to Christianity. The ceremony 
was performed in the cathedral of Rheims, the 
vast church which has been so terribly mutilated 
by shell-fire during the Great War, and before 
which the statue of Jeanne d'Arc stood un- 
touched by the enemy's attack as if by miracle. 

The village church was dedicated to the saint. 
Every child in Domremy knew the nine-hun- 
dred-year-old story of the descent of the holy oil 
from heaven in the sacred vessel, the sainte 
ampoulle, borne in the beak of a dove. Ever 



36 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

since the day of the great Philip Augustus, two 
hundred years before Jeanne's time, every king 
of France had been crowned at Rheims and 
anointed from the holy vessel, just as was every 
king but three for four centuries after. 

So during several years the Voices persisted 
in their work of making of the little Lorraine 
peasant girl an instrument for the preservation 
of France. Her purpose was built, her cour- 
age sustained, her knowledge of what to do im- 
parted to her. Many a one has seen visions and 
heard voices and has marveled at the miracle 
and done no more. Jeanne's visions and Voices 
were the guides of her keen intelligence and her 
religious spirit toward the fulfilment of deeds 
so high that not for many years after her pass- 
ing was their importance understood. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE dauphin's ONLY HELP 

Between the battle of Verneuil and the siege 
of Orleans there were three or four years of in- 
creasing disorder in France. Sometimes the 
Dauphin's party gained some advantage; more 
often it suffered. By degrees the north became 
strongly Burgundian and English, and it was 
clear that if Orleans fell into their power Charles 
would be pushed to the south with less and less 
hope of establishing himself on the throne of 
his ancestors. 

It came to pass that the serious straits of Or- 
leans and the education of Jeanne for her great 
mission came to a climax at the same time. 
From Jeanne's own story of her childhood we 
can see how the idea of taking help to the Dau- 
phin grew in her mind. At first she did not 
know why she had been told by her Voices to go 
into France; then it became definite to her. 

^^Had you in your youth any intention of fight- 
ing the Burgundians?" she was asked by her 
examiners. 

37 



38 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

"I had a great will and desire that my King 
should have his own kingdom," she answered. 
And at another time she said, "I would rather 
have been torn asunder by four horses than have 
come into France without God's leave." 

Believing that she was being instructed by God 
to go upon this mission, she nevertheless said 
nothing about it directly to any one. Perhaps 
she may have hinted that she would like to be 
with the Dauphin's army, for her father is re- 
ported to have dreamed two years before she 
finally went away that she had indeed gone with 
the soldiers. He was extremely angry, although 
it was only a dream idea, and he said to his sons, 
"If I really believed that what I dreamed of my 
daughter would ever come true, I would rather 
see her drowned by you ; and if you would not 
do it I would do it myself." 

Later she spoke more freely about her pur- 
pose, for she told a neighbor's boy, "There is a 
girl between Coussy and Vaucouleurs who, 
within the year, will have the king crowned at 
Rheims." 

Another boy said that he had heard her say 
that she would restore the royal line. Just before 
her final departure from Domremy she said to 
that one of her neighbors about the loss of whose 
head she semed so indifferent later on, "If you 



THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 39 

were not a Burgundian I would tell you some- 
thing." 

Probably it was tales like these that made 
one of her brothers report to her that it was town 
talk that she had become a bit ''queer" from fre- 
quenting the haunted oak wood and the Fairies' 
Tree, for such talk from the lips of a peasant 
like themselves must have seemed "queer" in- 
deed to the village folk. 

When Jeanne understood from her Voices that 
she was to go into France to aid the Dauphin in 
securing his throne, it must have seemed to her 
that she was being urged to attempt what was 
utterly impossible. If the prince himself and 
his generals could not win his battles, how could 
she? 

Yet after constant repetition of the command, 
"Go into France!" she became sure that it was 
God's will. 

"I could stay no longer," she said. 

Then the Voice spoke more definitely. 

"Go ; raise the siege that is being made before 
the city of Orleans." 

Such an order would have seemed worse than 
useless if the Voice had not gone into details. 

"Go," it said, "to Robert de Baudricourt, Cap- 
tain of Vaucouleurs ; he will furnish you with an 
escort to accompany you." 

Now, Robert de Baudricourt was the only in- 



40 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

fluential soldier Jeanne knew about, and it was 
natural that her mind should turn to him when 
she was thinking of military adventures. But 
her father had had some business dealings with 
him and she must have heard that he was a rough 
and ready person who would be likely to greet 
her request with a roar of laughter. 

Vaucouleurs, which was the walled town on 
the Meuse about twelve and a half miles to the 
north of Domremy, was on a road then infested 
by robbers and coarse soldiers. For a young 
woman to accomplish the trip was no easy 
matter. 

Jeanne tried to beg off from this difficult en- 
terprise, telling the Voice that she was but a poor 
girl who knew nothing, of riding or fighting. 
But the Voice suggested ways and means. 

At Burey-en-Vaux, between Domremy and 
Vaucouleurs, lived a cousin of Jeanne's who had 
married a peasant named Durand Lassois, whom 
Jeanne called ^'Uncle." Jeanne went on a visit 
to this cousin. While there she coaxed her Un- 
cle Durand to escort her to Vaucouleurs. 
Lassois was willing, and they walked to the 
town. The Captain received them in the hall 
of the Castle. 

The chateau is in ruins now, all except a gate 
opening toward ^'France," pierced in a tower 
with a sharply sloping roof. Tower and broken 



THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 41 

walls are made of the stone of the locality cut 
into brick-shaped blocks. It was through this 
gate that Jeanne finally rode forth upon her 
quest. 

But that was not directly after her first appeal 
to the Captain. It needed more than one effort 
to convince that hardened fighter that there was 
anything beyond girlish foolishness in Jeanne's 
wishes. It must have been a trying experience to 
the young peasant to approach Robert even 
though her Uncle was with her. But she was 
given divine help. 

^'When I arrived I recognized Robert de Bau- 
dricourt, although I never had seen him," she 
said, according to one chronicler, in describing 
her visit. ^'I knew him, thanks to my Voice, 
which made me recognize him. I said to him, 
^I must go into France!' " 

One of the squires standing by during this 
strange interview related the conversation quite 
fully. 

^'She told Captain Robert de Baudricourt," 
he said, "that she came to him in the name of 
her Lord; that the Dauphin must be compelled 
to persevere and to give battle to his enemies, 
that the Lord would give him succor before the 
middle of Lent; that the kingdom belonged not 
to him, the Dauphin, but to her Lord; that her 
Lord would have the Dauphin King and hold 



42 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

the kingdom in trust; that she would make him 
king in spite of his enemies and would conduct 
him to his coronation." 

"But who is this Lord of whom you speak?" 
asked Robert of her. 

"The King of Heaven," she replied. 

It was not strange that the bluff soldier whose 
life was spent in giving and taking blows and 
who was even then wondering what preparations 
he should make to meet the English and Bur- 
gundian push that seemed not far in the future, 
should hail with ridicule the idea of sending 
a peasant girl to the Dauphin. 

"Twice Robert refused to hear me and re- 
pulsed me," Jeanne continued, and the story 
goes that he advised Lassois to take her home 
and box her ears soundly. Whether he boxed 
her ears or not — and it was advice quite in keep- 
ing with the spirit of the time — home she went 
after her first attempt in May, 1428, and again 
after another unsuccessful trial. 

There were distractions in her life now that 
might have made her forget her mission if it had 
not become a part of her very being. It was 
probably at about this time that a band of Bur- 
gundian spoilers swooped down upon Dom- 
remy with such fierceness of fire and sword that 
Jacques d'Arc took his family to the nearest large 
town, Neufchateau. There, in company with 



THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 43 

a good many of their neighbors, they stayed sev- 
eral days. That Jeanne was no visionary who 
sat with her hands in her lap is shown by her 
behavior in Neufchateau. Though she was 
filled with divine ardor for the accomplishment 
of her mission, she nevertheless helped the good 
woman of the inn where they stayed to attend to 
her housework, greatly increased by the sudden 
addition of so many people to her list of guests. 

It was while she was at Neufchateau that she 
was summoned to appear at court at Toul by a 
young man who said that she had broken her 
promise to marry him. Although her parents 
favored the young man's suit, Jeanne's belief that 
in some way she would be enabled to fulfil her 
mission gave her strength to go to Toul, some 
thirty miles away, and to face the judges. She 
told them the truth — that she had made no 
promises to the young man and had vowed never 
to marry so long as God willed. The judges be- 
lieved her and let her go unreproached. Their 
decision may have been a matter of regret to 
her parents, who probably would have liked to 
see her married like the other girls of her age. 

But nothing deterred Jeanne from her great 
errand, and early in the year 1429 she made her 
third attempt to secure help from Robert de 
Baudricourt. Again she went with her Uncle 
Lassois. She was wearing a red dress, which, 



44 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

though it was old and worn, must have been 
becoming to her dark hair. 

She stopped and spoke to several of her 
neighbors. 

^'Adieu; God bless you," she cried to Men- 
gette, her next-door neighbor. 

^^Adieu," she said to Guilmette, whose son was 
one of the village children; "I am going to 
Vaucouleurs." 

It would seem that now she spoke openly about 
her visit to the Captain and did not pretend that 
her visit to her cousin was her whole purpose. 
Indeed, Colin, one of the villagers, said that she 
went to Vaucouleurs with her father's consent. 
Probably after she had vainly tried twice to in- 
fluence the Captain, Jacques d'Arc thought he 
might leave the matter to the soldier's good 
sense and cease his own efforts to stop his daugh- 
ter's crazy journeys. She did not say good-by 
to Hauviette, her best friend, and the young 
girl wept over being ignored. 

While Jeanne was in Vaucouleurs during this 
third attempt to win over Robert she stayed 
with the cartwright, Henri Leroyer, and his 
wife, Catherine, whom she helped with her 
housework and spinning. She went often to 
church and remained long in prayer. One day 
a young boy who helped serve mass in the 
Chapel of the Blessed Mary saw her in the 




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THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 45 

crypt of the chapel on her knees before the 
Blessed Mary, her face sometimes bent to the 
ground, sometimes raised to heaven. 

^'She was a good and holy maiden," he testi- 
fied in after years when he had become Canon 
of the same chapel. 

Her confession she made to Messire Jean 
Fournier, the parish priest. 

The Leroyers she converted to her cause as 
she had Lassois by reminding them of an an- 
cient prophecy that was often repeated among 
the country folk to the effect that France, ruined 
by a woman, should be restored by a maid from 
the borders of Lorraine. The usual interpreta- 
tion among the peasants was that the destroyer 
of the country was the Dauphin's mother, Isa- 
beau of Bavaria, who had played fast and loose 
with the crown and had deeded it away from 
her own son by the Treaty of Troyes that gave 
it over to England. Who should be the savior 
maiden, Jeanne was to teach them. 

At first Robert was as deaf as before to her 
requests, and in desperation she borrowed some 
of her uncle's clothes and started to walk into 
France. Her good sense taught her that that 
was not the way to manage her affair, and she 
returned. But she was just as determined as 
ever. 

A young knight named Jean de Novelemport, 



46 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

called Jean de Metz, who had known Jeanne and 
her father and mother at Domremy, happened 
to be at Vaucouleurs at the time and he recog- 
nized Jacques d'Arc's daughter. 

^What are you doing here, my friend?" he 
asked her. He was a good Armagnac in poli- 
tics, for he went on, "Must the king be driven 
from the kingdom; and are we to be English?" 

"I am come here," she answered, "to this 
royal town to speak to Robert de Baudricourt 
to the end that he may conduct me or have me 
conducted to the king; but Robert cares neither 
for me nor for my words. Nevertheless, before 
the middle of Lent, I must be with the king — 
even if I have to wear down my feet to the 
knees! No one in the world — neither kings nor 
dukes nor the daughter of the king of Scotland 
nor any others — can recover the kingdom of 
France; there is no succor to be expected save 
from me ; but, nevertheless, I would rather spin 
with my poor mother — for this is not my proper 
estate: it is, however, necessary that I should go 
and do this because my Lord wills that I should 
do it." 

"Who is this Lord?" asked Jean just as Rob- 
ert had done, and Jeanne told him, just as she 
had told Robert, that her Lord was God. 

Infinitely touched, Jean pledged his faith to 
her, laying his hand on hers to indicate his al- 



THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 47 

legiance, and promising that with God's assist- 
ance, he would conduct her to the king. 

"When do you wish to start?" he asked her. 

"Sooner at once than to-morrow, and sooner 
to-morrow than later," she answered. 

But Robert was still to be reckoned with. 
He was impressed by Jeanne's persistence, that 
is clear; and perhaps he thought that at any rate 
no harm could come of it, and that the Dau- 
phin's situation was so bad it hardly could be 
made worse by one more unsuccessful expedi- 
tion. Still, it was so strange that such an at- 
tempt should be made by a young girl that he 
wanted to be sure that the devil had no hand in 
it. So he called in the good offices of the Cure, 
Jean Fournier. Together they went to the Le- 
royer house, where the priest asked Madame 
Leroyer to leave the room. Then he put on his 
stole, and addressed Jeanne, saying: "If you are 
an evil spirit, avaunt! If you are a good spirit, 
approach." 

Jeanne approached the priest and threw her- 
self at his knees. When he and Robert had left 
the house, however, she told her hostess of her 
annoyance. 

"He should have known me," she said, very 
justly, "for I had confessed to him." 

Possibly the Cure's sympathies were with 
Jeanne and he took this means to advance her 



48 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

cause with Robert de Baudricourt. There is no 
doubt that it did so. Robert may have been 
startled into thinking it desirable to find out 
Jeanne's status as evil spirit or good when she 
told him on the 12th of February, ^'To-day the ^ 

gentle Dauphin hath had great hurt near th^ ' 

town of Orleans," and he found out that on that 
very day the French had been defeated in the 
Battle of the Herrings. 

There is no question that Jeanne's fame was 
beginning to spread about the country. The 
Duke of Lorraine sent for her, accompanying 
his invitation with a safe-conduct. Jean de 
Metz, who had suggested to her that on an ex- 
pedition such as she proposed a man's dreiss 
would be more convenient than skirts, gave her 
the dress and equipment of one of his followers. 
Incidentally, the fact that she could wear these 
garments and those of her uncle shows that she 
was a well-grown girl. Jean went with her as far 
as Toul, and her faithful Uncle Lassois accom- 
panied her to the shrine of Saint Nicholas and 
then on to the city of Nancy. 

The journey forwarded her great purpose but 
little directly, for the Duke, evidently thinking 
her a witch or a wonder-worker, was interested 
only in asking her questions about his own 
health, though he also gave her a horse and the 
sum of four francs to repay her for the trouble 



THE DAUPHIN'S ONLY HELP 49 

she had taken. Probably his summons assisted 
her indirectly, however, for the people of Vau- 
couleurs, impressed by the reception that was 
being given to her undertaking, were now eager 
to help her. They had a suitable dress made 
for her. It included a shirt, breeches, a black 
doublet with hose joined together and fastened 
to the doublet by twenty points, long leggings 
laced on the outside, a short, dark gray mantle, 
a black cap which she wore over hair cut short 
but showing below the edge, tight-fittting boots, 
and spurs. 

It was long held against Jeanne that she pre- 
ferred to wear men's clothes, and that was given 
as one objection to her canonization. That she 
clung to her woman's dress as long as was feasi- 
ble is shown by the testimony of one of her 
Greux neighbors, Jean Morel, who declared that 
almost a half year after her departure from 
Vaucouleurs he met Jeanne at Chalons "at the 
time when it was said that the King was going 
to Rheims to be anointed," and that she made 
him "a present of a red dress she had been wear- 
ing" — perhaps the old frock in which she had 
left Domremy. 

Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, a 
squire who was furthering Jeanne's attempt to 
reach the Dauphin, procured a horse for her 
for the sum of twelve or sixteen francs. Robert 



so THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

de Baudricourt gave her a sword and wrote a 
letter to Charles, telling of her prophecy and of 
her expedition. Her little band consisted of 
Jean and Bertrand with two servants, of Colet 
de Vienne, a King's Messenger — perhaps the 
man who had brought the news of the Battle 
of the Herrings — and of Richard the Archer. 
On Wednesday, February 23, 1429, Jeanne, 
with this slender ^following, rode out of the 
Porte de France and set her horse's head toward 
Chinon, where the Dauphin was staying. 

Her spirit was high. When she was re- 
minded of the danger of such a journey, she an- 
swered, "I fear no enemies. I have a sure road; 
if the enemy are on my road I have God with 
me, who knows how to prepare the way to the 
Lord Dauphin. I was born to do this." 



CHAPTER V 

ON THE ROAD TO CHINON 

It was a strange little cavalcade that set forth 
from Vaucouleurs, its chief figure a young girl 
unprotected by either father or brother not only 
against possible highwaymen but also against 
the very men who formed her escort. For the 
men of those days were not inclined to show 
great consideration for peasant girls, and, in- 
deed, the less important men of this small band 
could not resist teasing Jeanne by pretending at 
one time that some of them were turning traitor 
and that the others were ready to run away. 
Jeanne reassured them in all seriousness. Her 
sincere belief in her mission, her entire lack of 
self-consciousness and her evident goodness safe- 
guarded her. 

^^I should never have dared to molest her be- 
cause of the great goodness which I saw in her," 
said Bertrand, and Jean de Metz declared, 
^While we were with her we found her always 
good, simple, pious, an excellent Christian, 
well-behaved and God-fearing." 

51 



52 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

So wonderful did what she had promised to 
accomplish for the Dauphin seem to Jean that 
he often asked her, quite naturally, if she would 
really do all she said. Over and over again she 
answered, ''Have no fear; what I am com- 
manded to do I will do; my brothers in Para- 
dise have told me how to act: it is four or five 
years since my brothers in Paradise and my 
Lord — that is, God — told me that I must go and 
fight in order to regain the kingdom of France." 

The beginning of the journey was through 
a section of the country that was held by Bur- 
gundians and English, and the first part of the 
eleven days' trip was made at night. . The first 
stop was at the Abbey of Saint Urbain, where 
they slept and heard mass. Jeanne would have 
liked to hear mass every day, but that was im- 
prudent, for there were too many enemies 
abroad who might have recognized Colet as 
the King's Messenger if not Jean and Bertrand. 
To make amends for not being able to have this 
spiritual delight, Jeanne gave liberal alms to all 
the poor she met, Jean providing her with the 
necessary money. 

Opposite Saint Urbain there was a bridge by 
which the party crossed the river Marne, for 
now they had left the Meuse behind. They 
were not to cross many bridges after this, for it 
was wise for them to travel by side roads which 



f ON THE ROAD TO CHINON 53 

provided only fords for the crossing of streams. 
Night after night they slept in the open, not 
daring to ask shelter lest they happen into an 
enemy's house or be betrayed into hostile hands. 

Through all these difficulties Jeanne remained 
serene. "She entirely abstained from swear- 
ing," Bertrand said, which is probably more 
than could be said of any of her companions 
if the high water at a ford got into their boots. 

"I felt myself inspired by her words," he con- 
tinued, "for I saw she was indeed a messenger 
of God; never did I see in her any evil, but 
always she was as good as if she had been a 
saint." 

At the town of Auxerre they heard mass 
again. Bertrand described the journey as being 
one of "many anxieties" but "without many ob- 
stacles." 

Not long before reaching her destination, 
Chinon, Jeanne and her companions stopped at 
the village of Fierbois, where Jeanne's Saint 
Catherine had a chapel that even at this time 
was reputed to be ancient. The local story made 
it very ancient. It said that some seven hun- 
dred years before, Charles Martel had left his 
sword in the good saint's chapel in thanksgiving 
for a victory over the Saracens. Almost surely 
the church was not as old as this, but the coun- 



54 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

try-folk liked to think that their great hero had 
visited that part of France. 

Their own worship of the saint flagged after 
a time, for about fifty years before Jeanne's ex- 
/pedition the little chapel was so overgrown with 
briars and trees that a certain knight who wanted 
to restore it had to have them cut down before 
his workmen could enter. This knight was both 
blind and paralyzed, and as a reward for his 
good works in behalf of her shrine Saint Cath- 
erine gave him back his sight and his power of 
motion. This miracle aroused once more the 
interest of the local people, and when Jeanne 
stopped there and raised her prayers to Heaven, 
it was a spot held in especial reverence by the 
Armagnacs and other followers of the Dauphin 
who had been taken captive by the Burgundians 
or the English and set free by the saint's inter- 
vention. 

If the prisoner besought Saint Catherine his 
release was brought about in wonderful ways. 
Sometimes the English of their own accord lib- 
erated him. Sometimes he walked past his 
jailers as if these men were suddenly stricken 
sightless. Sometimes he was given unusual 
strength to overcome his guards. Once a cap- 
tive, bound with a heavy rope and locked in a 
cage, was loosed as if the cage had been taken 
from about him. Another went to sleep bound, 



ON THE ROAD TO CHINON 55 

and woke, still bound, but in his own home. 

All these men who owed their escape to Saint 
Catherine showed their gratitude by coming to 
her chapel and leaving there some token — the 
swords that had cut their way to freedom, the 
ropes or the chains that had held them, a piece 
of the armor of the outwitted guard. Jeanne 
saw many of these offerings when she went to 
three masses there in the one day of her stay, 
and she remembered well the spot that testified 
so strongly to the interest of Saint Catherine in 
her side of the quarrel that was tearing France 
asunder. 

Like most of the girls of her time, Jeanne 
could not read or write. When she wanted to 
send word to the Dauphin from Fierbois to 
notify him of her coming and to ask if he would 
receive her, she was obliged to dictate it. 

"I sent letters to the King saying that I had 
traveled a hundred and fifty leagues to come 
to his help, and that I knew many things good 
for him. I think I remember there was in my 
letter the remark that I should recognize him 
among all others." 

And so, on the next day after her renewed 
appeal to Saint Catherine, she took horse once 
more and soon rode into the Dauphin's town of 
Chinon. By chance it was the fourth Sunday 
in Lent, Laetare Sunday, and in Domremy 



56 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Jeanne's friends and kinsfolk were weaving gar- 
lands and eating nuts and cakes under the 
Fairies' Tree, while she, many miles away and 
destined never to see her home again, was gaz- 
ing at the massive castle before her. The first 
stage in her sacred adventure was ended. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 

Jeanne believed that the Dauphin was di- 
vinely appointed to rule over France, and she 
seems to have seen in him only good qualities. 
She always spoke of him as the ^'Gentle Dau- 
phin," and she gave her life for him. 

Others, more worldly, found him a weakling 
and used him as a tool whereby they might gain 
their ends of securing money and power for 
themselves. They took advantage of his being 
lazy and pleasure-loving and extravagant. He 
had agreeable manners and they flattered him 
to his face, but in their hearts they considered 
him a poor fool without energy or intelligence 
enough to push his affairs to success. In ridi- 
cule they called him the ^^King of Bourges," the 
town where he often stayed. 

Like many a man of low degree, he owed the 
tradesmen who provided the food for his table, 
and he owed all sorts of other people from whom* 
he borrowed occasionally to pay the tradesmen. 
When he had no ready money to repay some 

57 



58 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

creditor nobleman, he handed over to him a 
prosperous town whose citizens might be forced 
to disgorge funds on one excuse or another. He 
was no fighter for the love of fighting, but dis- 
played noteworthy prudence in staying at a dis- 
tance from the scenes of civil war even when 
his presence might have heartened his men. He 
was profoundly religious, but he was also super- 
stitious. 

Authorities differ about his appearance. 
Some say he was ugly and almost misshapen; 
others that he was well-made and graceful. 
When Jeanne first saw him he was twenty-six 
years old, an age when he should have been in 
the prime of youthful vigor. 

Although he had been harassed and lied to all 
his life, not only by his foes but by those who 
should have been his friends, as for example, 
his mother and the Sieur de la Tremoille, he 
nevertheless was called Charles the Well-Served 
because of the faithfulness of certain of his fol- 
lowers. Whether they served him out of love, 
as did de Gaucourt, or from loyalty to the royal 
house, as did the Archbishop of Rheims, or be- 
cause of a divine urge like Jeanne's, he had at 
least a certain small following who were unsel- 
fish. If he could have shown equal unselfish- 
ness in return, he would have presented a hap- 
pier picture in history. 



THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 59 

When Jeanne and her party reached Chinon, 
they lodged at an inn not far from the castle. 
After dinner the Maid, relying for introduction 
on the letter which Robert de Baudricourt had 
sent forward to the Dauphin telling him of her 
purpose and on her own note sent from Fierbois 
the previous day, went to the castle and asked to 
be received by Charles. 

To her surprise, her request was refused. 
The Dauphin never had heard of her. Prob- 
ably the secretaries who supervised his letters 
thought that Jeanne was some insane woman 
and that Robert had sent her on in order to 
get rid of her. Fortunately, the King's own 
Messenger was with her, and could vouch to 
Charles for the profound impression she had 
made at Vaucouleurs by her prophecy about 
the battle of the Herrings. While he told his 
story, Jeanne returned to the inn, where she 
waited, praying, for two days before she was 
allowed audience with Charles. 

There can be no doubt that his attention was 
commanded by her message to him. Those 
were days when many happenings were ex- 
plained as miracles that to-day would receive 
a far more commonplace explanation. The 
Church was held in fear as well as reverence 
then and there had been many men and women 
who claimed to be inspired who were approved 



6o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

by the Church. A lack of attention to what they 
said and did would be met with reproach from 
churchmen. Charles himself, as the highest 
churchman in France, would be careful not to 
overlook any such person who appealed to him. 

Aside from Jeanne's winning intimation that 
she "knew many good things for him" — and he 
stood in need of many good things at that time, 
for the siege of Orleans was going against him 
— no less than three astrologers whose guidance 
he was accustomed to seek had recently prophe- 
sied that the English would be driven from 
France by the help of a Maid. 

It was not strange, then, that Charles was 
willing or even more than willing to see Jeanne 
and talk with her. But kings are so often im- 
posed upon that he felt the need of being care- 
ful. So while Jeanne besought the aid of her 
saints and of God, the Dauphin summoned Jean 
de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy and exam- 
ined them as to what they knew of the young 
girl who had induced them to escort her on such 
an extraordinary journey. 

We have seen what these two men thought 
of Jeanne and believed about her, so it is fair 
to assume that they were enthusiastic in their 
praise. Unaccustomed as he was to making de- 
cisions for himself, Charles asked the opinion of 
one and another of his advisers as to his recep- 




CHINON — CLOCK-TOWER AND ENTRANCE TO CASTLE 



THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 61 

tion of this possibly fraudulent young woman. 
Some scoffed at the idea of her knowing any 
good thing at all for him. Others thought there 
might be no harm in listening to what she had 
to say — even a little amusement, perhaps, to be 
had out of it. 

So on Tuesday, after a wait of two days at 
the inn, Jeanne was given leave to enter the 
castle. There could have been no doubt in her 
own mind as to the outcome of her appeal. She 
was too well assured by her Voices and by her 
own conviction that she would be permitted to 
carry out her mission. Nevertheless, the time 
of waiting was trying. 

As she approached the castle she was per- 
mitted to give an instance of prophetic power 
that must have made a deep impression on the 
people about her. A man on horseback, seeing 
her pass, cried out, ^'Is that the Maid?" and 
added an insulting remark, cursing as he did so. 

"Dost thou blaspheme God, thou who art so 
near thy death!" exclaimed Jeanne, overlook- 
ing, as was her way, the belittling of herself 
in her distress at hearing the name of God taken 
in vain. And, an hour after, this man fell into 
the water and was drowned. So reported 
Brother Jean Pasquerel, an Augustin friar of 
Tours, who said that Jeanne herself as well as 



62 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

many others who said they had been witnesses 
to it had told him of the occurrence. 

If Jeanne had been any other girl the pros- 
pect of talking with her King in the presence 
of the greatest nobles of his party would have 
filled her with nervous embarrassment. But 
Jeanne was calm and unperturbed. Of gentle 
manners was she, too, according to onlookers. 
Perhaps she had talked for so long with saints 
who wore crowns and spoke in beautiful tones 
that she, too, carried herself like a princess and 
spoke as if gently bred. 

The Dauphin was awaiting the Maid in the 
great hall of the castle. More than three hun- 
dred knights were grouped about the room and 
on them flickered the light of some fifty torches. 
Of course the news must have spread through 
the castle that the inspired young woman was 
to appear, and it is not hard to imagine that here 
and there were men ready to believe in her, 
here and there men prepared to sneer, and that 
all were filled with curiosity to see how she 
would behave. 

If they expected her to show fear or even 
awkwardness they were disappointed. With en- 
tire serenity she entered and looked about the 
great room. Some writers have said that the 
courtiers tried to hoax her by putting forward 
one of their number as the Dauphin. It would 



THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 63 

not need any such ruse as that to make it diffi- 
cult for a stranger to pick out the prince in so 
large a throng of men all dressed in much the 
same way. Nor could Jeanne have seen pic- 
tures of him as we do to-day when we are en- 
tirely familiar with the faces of distinguished 
men of all countries. Yet she made her way 
straight to the Dauphin, took her cap from off 
her cropped hair, and bowed low before him. 

^'When I entered the room where he was, I 
recognized him among many others by the coun- 
sel of my Voice, which revealed him to me," 
she herself explained. 

One of the witnesses of Jeanne's entrance said 
that he overheard her say, ''Most noble Lord 
Dauphin, I come from God to help you and 
your realm." 

Then she stepped apart from the crowd with 
the king and confirmed her holy errand by tell- 
ing him in private something that was known 
only to himself and to God. Before she left 
Vaucouleurs her Voices had told her that she 
would be given a sign that would convince the 
Dauphin of her ability and of her divine sup- 
port. Now, as she stood before him, she was 
able to read his mind, and she told him how, 
during the previous year, he, being in great dis- 
tress of mind, prayed in his chapel, "uttering 
no words, but in his heart imploring God that, 



64 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

if he were indeed the true heir of the blood of 
the noble House of France, and the kingdom 
rightfully his own, God would please to guard 
and defend him; or at least grant him grace to 
avoid death or captivity, and escape to Spain 
or Scotland, whose kings were all of ancientry 
brothers-in-arms and allies of the kings of 
France; wherefore he had chosen them as his 
last refuge." 

It was immediately evident to all present 
that the Dauphin had given his belief to the 
Maid, but what she had said they did not know 
then nor for long after. The matter was too 
private for Charles to admit it and Jeanne was 
too loyal to tell even when threatened with 
torture. 

It was characteristic of Charles that he did 
not want to seem to have yielded too suddenly 
to the strange young girl. So he declared that 
she must be questioned by the clergy before he 
allowed her to set forth upon her mission of 
making war upon the English. Meanwhile, she 
was chaperoned by the Dauphin's major-domo 
and his wife, and was given a page. Her lodg- 
ing was in a room in the Coudray Tower of 
the castle, where she stayed for about six weeks. 
The room was entered by an outside staircase. 
To-day, the roof has fallen in as has that of 



THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 65 

the great hall, but, like it, the fireplace is still 
in fairly good condition. 

Louis, the page, testified that many grand folk 
came to visit the Maid in the tower, and also 
that he often saw her at prayers and in tears. 

The clergy asked her many questions, to all 
of which she gave such satisfactory answers that 
Charles was well satisfied. When her exami- 
ners asked her, ^'Why was your King able to 
put faith in your words?" she answered, "He 
had good signs and the clergy bore me witness." 

The deposition of the Duke d'Alengon, whom 
Jeanne called her "fair duke," introduces a 
character who was much with the Maid during 
the fighting days that were to come. He said: 
"When Jeanne arrived at Chinon I was at Saint 
Florent. One day, when I was hunting quails 
a messenger came to inform me that there had 
come to the King a young girl who said she 
was sent from God to conquer the English and 
to raise the siege then undertaken by them 
against Orleans. It was for this reason that I 
went on the following day to Chinon, where I 
found Jeanne talking with the King. Having 
approached them, she asked me who I was. 'It 
is the Duke d'Alengon,' replied the King. 'You 
are welcome,' she then said to me, 'the more 
that come together of the blood of France the 
better it will be.' The next day she went to the 



66 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

King's Mass; and when she perceived him she 
made a profound salutation. After Mass the 
King took her into his private room, where he 
kept me with him as well as the Sieur de la 
Tremoille, after having sent away all the others. 
Jeanne then made several requests to the King — 
amongst others that he would make a gift of his 
kingdom to the King of Heaven, because the 
King of Heaven, after this gift, would do for 
him as He had done for his predecessor, and re- 
instate him in all his rights. Many other things 
were said, up to the hour of dinner, which I do 
not remember. After dinner the King went for 
a walk; Jeanne coursed before him, lance in 
hand. Seeing her manage her lance so well, 
I gave her a horse." 

How Jeanne learned to ride is a question that 
has never been answered. Her father worked 
a little mare on his farm, and probably the 
Maid, like most farm children, rode to and 
from the fields bareback, but her undoubted 
skill in horsemanship seems to have been one 
of the gifts that went with the other capabilities 
with which she was endowed for the accom- 
plishment of her mission. 

^Tollowing on this," continued the Duke 
d'Alengon, ''the King caused her to be exam- 
ined by the clergy. They questioned her in my 
presence and asked why she had come, and who 



THE WONDERFUL RECOGNITION 67 

had caused her to come to the King. She re- 
plied that she had come from the King of 
Heaven, that she had Voices and a Counsel 
which told her what she was to do ; but I do not 
remember if she made known what those Voices 
told her. 

^'One day when dining with me she told me 
that the clergy had examined her well, but that 
she knew and could do more than she had told 
them. The King, when he had heard the re- 
port of his commissioners, wished that she 
should still go to Poitiers in order to submit to 
another examination." 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 

Jeanne's faithful friends, Jean de Metz and 
Bertrand de Pouiengy, accompanied her to 
Poitiers to help her through the next ordeal 
that was to come to her. Not that they could 
answer for her the innumerable questions that 
the learned men, so-called, put to her, but to 
give her the comfort of their presence near her. 

In very truth Jeanne needed patience. She 
told the Dauphin more than once that he was 
wasting precious hours by subjecting her to 
these delays. She had but one short year and 
a little more, she declared pathetically. Time 
proved that she spoke of facts. She said, too, 
that her Voices reproached her for not starting 
sooner to the rescue of her King. Perhaps even 
they had not foreseen the endless examinations 
to which Charles's hesitancy and the wise men's 
vanity would render her liable. 

Poitiers was the capital of Charles's much re- 
duced kingdom. A pretense of a Parliament 
met there. Jeanne was lodged in the house of 

68 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 69 

the Dauphin's Advocate in Parliament. There 
she was questioned interminably, not unlike her 
Saint Catherine, by the clergy and by lawyers. 
Over and over she told the same story of the 
appeal made to her by her Voices — she did not 
mention the names of the saints from whom the 
voices came — and of her intention to raise the 
siege of Orleans, and to conduct the Dauphin to 
Rheims for his consecration. 

At another time she said that two other events 
were to result from her adventure — Charles's 
regaining of Paris and the return of the Duke 
of Orleans from his captivity in England. All 
of these things happened but Jeanne was to see 
only the first two. 

With time pressing, the questions that were 
asked her often seemed entirely unnecessary. 
The King's Councilor-General asked why she 
called Charles Dauphin and not King. She re- 
plied that she should not call him King until 
he had been crowned and anointed at Rheims 
— so strongly had she been impressed from 
childhood with the necessity for this ceremony 
in the cathedral of Rheims. 

The clergy, perhaps unbelieving, perhaps 
eager to see a modern miracle, demanded that 
she show them a sign to prove that she was sent 
from God as she said. She answered very sen- 
sibly, 'The sign given me from God is to raise 



70 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

the siege of Orleans ; I have no fear that it will 
be done, if the King will give me soldiers, as 
few as he may like." 

^'But," objected one of her examiners, "if God 
wills to deliver the people of France from the 
calamity in which they now are, it is not neces- 
sary to have soldiers." 

Jeanne showed a not unnatural impatience at 
this overlooking of the fact that God uses instru- 
ments to effect his purposes. 

"I am not come to Poitiers to shown signs," 
she replied. "The soldiers will fight, and God 
will give the victory." 

The Maid was not without a sense of humor 
even amid these annoyances. When one of the 
professors of theology asked her in what dialect 
the Voice spoke, she answered tartly, "A better 
one than yours!" which must have sent a smile 
about the room, for the worthy clergyman ad- 
mits in his account of the interview, "I speak 
the Limousin dialect." 

Sometimes Jeanne made speeches that puz- 
zled serious men who had no imagination and 
took things with perfect literalness. Once she 
said to a group of these human interrogation 
points, "There are books of our Lord's besides 
what you have." Probably these wise men never 
had thought of there being what a certain poet 
described two hundred years later as "books in 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 71 

the running brooks, sermons in stones." Still 
less did many of them seem to know of the inner 
teachings that equal the lessons of Holy Writ. 

It must have been a great relief to her to meet 
at Poitiers a young squire to the King who went 
with the wiseacres to visit Jeanne. She struck 
him genially on the shoulder, delighted to see 
some one who was simple-hearted and did not 
come to molest her, and said that she would 
gladly have many men of such good-will as he. 
When one of the young man's companions told 
her that he had been sent by the King to ques- 
tion her, she answered, not without a touch of 
sarcasm, ^'I well believe that you have been sent 
to question me." 

Confessing that she knew "neither A nor B," 
Jeanne asked a clerkly man to write a letter for 
her to the leaders of the English attacking Or- 
leans. Then she dictated it. As the squire pre- 
viously mentioned remembered it, it ran: 

"You, Suffolk, Classidas and La Poule, I summon you 
by order of the King of Heaven to go back to England." 

The learned men pronounced it entirely safe 
for the King to allow Jeanne to ride with his 
armies and she returned to Chinon. But once 
again she was sent back to Poitiers. No one 
in authority seemed willing to take a sporting 
chance with her. It would seem that at least 



72 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

she could do no harm even if her claims to di- 
vine guidance should prove to be unfounded. 
But they continued to argue and discuss with 
and about her — and the siege of Orleans still 
went on. 

A rumor spread abroad that the Maid was 
not really a maid, and during her second visit 
to Poitiers, she submitted to an examination by 
a committee of distinguished ladies to make 
sure that she was not a boy playing a trick on 
them all. At the same time messengers were 
sent to Domremy to confirm her story of her 
early life there. There must have been doubt of 
the truth of Jean de Metz's and Bertrand's state- 
ments, too, for they had known her and her 
friends in Lorraine. To Jeanne, all this must 
have seemed just one delay after another teas- 
ingly invented to make more difficult the ac- 
complishment of her mission in her "one short 
year." 

At the time of her trial Jeanne repeatedly 
begged that reference be made to the notes that 
had been taken of all these examinations at 
Poitiers. But the Book of Poitiers was not then 
produced nor has it ever been found. Probably 
it was destroyed by the Maid's enemies. 

Jeanne must have been glad of heart and 
radiant of face when at last she was permitted 
to leave Poitiers and start on the next step of 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 73 

her journey. The city of Tours was in the 
hands of the Dauphin's mother-in-law, the 
Queen of Sicily. There the Maid was housed 
with one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting. 

Tours remained one of the prosperous cities 
of France, largely because of its prudence 
towards its own friends. It was not many miles 
from Orleans, which it assisted many times with 
gifts of money and provisions, but when bodies 
of soldiers passing by wanted to stop even for 
a few days, the worthy governors of the town 
would not admit such possible trouble-makers, 
or, at best, only a few of them. Tours held as 
much as she could to the quiet life of the days 
before civil war rent the kingdom and she tried 
to keep alive her trades and industries. 

One of her industries was the making of 
weapons and armor. AH who engaged in it 
must have driven a lively trade at this time. 
At least three more customers were found when 
Jeanne's party entered the city. The Dauphin 
ordered a suit of armor to be made for her, all 
glistening white like silver, for those were the 
days when a soldier was a shining mark. Jean 
de Metz and Bertrand also lodged orders for 
new suits of mail. The bills for all three have 
been found and show that Jeanne's cost less than 
the men's because of its smaller size, but it was 



74 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

not inexpensive, for it mounted to the equivalent 
of eight hundred dollars. 

Its smaller size and lighter weight did not 
make it an altogether negligible burden even 
for a sturdy peasant girl. Jeanne's page tells of 
her fatigue from wearing it at first. Even the 
thick jacket worn beneath it could not soften 
the stiffness of the pieces of metal that protected 
neck and chest, arms and legs. The head was 
shielded by a steel cap with a slatted visor that 
could be lifted or closed, the feet were covered 
by steel shoes and the hands by gauntlets. 

Charles included in his gifts for the Maid's 
equipment a war-horse, which she selected her- 
self from among several. War-horses needed 
to be weight carriers in those days, for they bore 
not only the weight of the rider and his armor, 
but that of their own armor. Jeanne's steed 
was no exception, and he also had a handsome, 
sweeping cloth or velvet mantle to cover his 
steel coat. 

Jeanne chose for her sword one with romantic 
interest. During her visit to the shrine of Saint 
Catherine at Fierbois, she had seen many swords 
and pieces of armor left in the chapel by grate- 
ful knights. Now she sent for one of these 
swords that had been dedicated to her favorite 
saint. There is no especial reason to think that 
she ever had seen the particular weapon she de- 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 75 

scribed to her messenger. One ancient writer 
says that the sword was found in a box that had 
lain unopened since before Jeanne's birth, so 
she could not possibly have noticed it during 
her visit. Later there was a legend that it was 
the sword of Charles Martel. This is improb- 
able, because it is not likely that Saint Catherine 
was worshipped at Fierbois in the time of that 
great fighter. 

Jeanne herself said that her Voice guided her 
to the sword. It has been well-proven that 
Jeanne had the gift of prophecy — she foretold 
the outcome of her mission to the neighbor boy 
at Domremy; she foretold to Charles that she 
would be wounded at Orleans. She also had 
the gift of clairvoyance, of mentally seeing 
things at a distance, as she did the battle of the 
Herrings. Not many people have the gift, but 
nowadays it is not considered mysterious. It 
merely means that its possessor has finer percep- 
tions than most of us. Having this ability, it 
may fairly be assumed that Jeanne saw mentally 
the sword she wanted. This is her description 
of her sending for it: 

^Whilst I was at Tours or at Chinon I sent 
to seek for a sword which was in the Church of 
Saint Catherine de Fierbois behind the altar; 
it was found there at once; the sword was in the 
ground and rusty; upon it were five crosses; I 



76 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

knew by my Voice where it was. I had never 
seen the man who went to seek for it. I wrote 
to the priests of the place that it might please 
them to let me have this sword, and they sent it 
to me. It was under the earth, not very deeply 
buried, behind the altar, so it seemed to me; I 
do not know whether it were behind or before 
the altar, but I believe I wrote saying that it 
was at the back. As soon as it was found the 
Priests of the Church rubbed it, and the rust 
fell off at once without effort. It was an 
armorer of Tours who went to look for it. The 
priests of Fierbois made me a present of a scab- 
bard; those of Tours, of another; one was of 
crimson velvet, the other of cloth-of-gold. I 
had a third made of leather, very strong." 

The story goes that Jeanne broke this sword, 
not upon a soldier of the enemy, but over the 
shoulders of a girl who insisted upon following 
the ranks of Charles's army. After that she 
used a sword taken from a Burgundian. 

Charles, having overcome his hesitation 
about allowing Jeanne to go to Orleans, deter- 
mined to send her handsomely. His interest 
did not end with the furnishing of her equip- 
ment. He gave her a ^^household" — a staff of 
retainers. Among them were Jean de Metz, who 
handled her money; an equerry, Jean d'Aulon, 
who was always close by her side in battle; and 



*^>4 ' 



SHflnntt 




JEANNE D'ARC— By P. Dubois 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 77 

two pages, Louis de Coutes now having a com- 
panion, Raymond. 

In addition to these followers, there was her 
confessor, an Augustinian friar named Jean de 
Pasquerel, who came to her probably through 
meeting some of her friends or relatives at Puy, 
not far from Tours. 

There was a saying that when Ascension Day 
and Good Friday fell on the same day, unusual 
happenings might be expected during the 
twelvemonth. Ascension Day and Good Friday 
fell on March 25 in the year 1429, and at Puy, 
where there was an image of the Virgin that 
was considered to be the oldest in France, there 
were great religious ceremonies. Jeanne's 
mother, who had previously earned the name of 
La Romee because she had made a pilgrimage 
to Rome, came on foot to Puy from Domremy, 
and she seems to have been accompanied by 
two of Jeanne's brothers, Pierre and Jean. Un- 
der their protection her journey does not seem 
so hazardous as does her return trip, for the 
two young men remained and joined their sis- 
ter at Tours. In Puy they met the priest, Jean 
de Pasquerel, and some of Jeanne's friends, and 
they all went to Tours. Introduced by her 
brothers and by friends whom she trusted, it is 
not strange that the Maid accepted the Augus- 
tinian at once as her confessor. He continued 



78 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

in that office until her capture a year later. 

Every leader must have a banner or standard. 
Jeanne said, ''Saint Catherine and Saint Mar- 
garet told me that I was to take my standard 
and to carry it boldly and to have painted on it 
the King of Heaven. I told my King, much 
against my will : that is all I can tell of the sig- 
nification of the painting." 

At another time she described it. "I had a 
standard of which the field was sprinkled with 
lilies; the world was painted there, with an 
angel at each side; it was white, of the white 
cloth called 'boccassin'; there was written 
above, I believe, 'Jesus Maria'; it was fringed 
with silk.'' 

Though armed and accoutered like a knight, 
Jeanne had no desire to shed blood, and she 
took measures not to be led away by excitement. 
To use her own words, "I bore this standard 
when I attacked the enemy to save killing any 
one, for I have never killed any one." 

The next stage of the journey toward Orleans 
was from Tours to Blois. At each stage the 
Maid's following increased. When she left 
Tours there rode with her, in addition to her 
own "household" and her brothers and a cousin 
who was a priest, the more impressive figures 
of the Dauphin's faithful Sieur de Gaucourt 
and the Archbishop of Rheims. One of her 



MAID RAISES HER STANDARD 79 

pages bore her standard before her. She her- 
self, clad in armor, girt with her cross-graved 
sword, carried in her right hand a light battle- 
axe. At Blois was waiting, for lack of money, a 
convoy of supplies for the people of the be- 
sieged city, and an escort of soldiers recruited 
from here and there. The Duke d'Alengon 
managed to induce Charles to pay the merchants 
and the soldiers, and then all were in the humor 
to start. 

Certain other nobles sent by the Dauphin met 
the Maid's army at Blois, and there, too, it was 
joined by a gathering of monks who had been 
turned out of their religious houses. It was 
not unusual for such refugees to travel with the 
armies for protection. They seem not to have 
had much influence on the soldiers, for these 
rough men were so notoriously profane that 
Charles had issued several proclamations urg- 
ing better speech upon them and reminding 
them that famine and pestilence were the results 
of blasphemy. 

In spite of these appeals, the men-at-arms 
continued to be of such evil speech as to cause 
Jeanne great distress. She went about among 
them, counseling them not to take the name of 
the Lord in vain, and begging them to attend to 
their religious duties. She had a special banner 
made representing the Crucifixion, and under it 



8o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

gathered the monks and such of the soldiers as 
had cleansed their souls by confession. Jean 
Pasquerel, her confessor, said: ''As soon as this 
banner was made, Jeanne, twice a day, morning 
and evening, charged me to assemble the priests 
around this banner: they then sang anthems and 
hymns to the Blessed Mary." 

With the payment of the money for the food 
and ammunition and for the soldiers there was 
nothing to hinder any longer the Maid's ad- 
vance toward the besieged city. On Wednes- 
day in Holy Week, April 27, the army set forth. 
At their head marched the priests around their 
banner and Jeanne rode with them. Like cru- 
saders of old, they all sang the Veni Creator 
Spiritus, Behind came the leaders, and behind 
them wound the long train of six hundred 
wagons of stores, guarded on each side by men- 
at-arms and bowmen. Last of all plodded four 
hundred head of cattle and their drivers. The 
air was filled with the dust stirred by stepping 
hoofs and marching feet. The music of the 
hymns came but faintly to the rear ranks. But 
the Maid was on her way and her heart was 
light. At nightfall the priests sang the Angelus. 
Then men and horses and cattle lay down for 
the night just where they were. And Jeanne 
gave thanks that at last she was on the road to 
fulfilment. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 

The English were planning to besiege Or- 
leans at just about the time when Jeanne made 
her first appeal to Robert de Baudricourt to 
send her to the Dauphin. Then, when the fate 
of her party was in more peril than it had been 
during any of the years when she had been told 
to ^^go into France," she felt a stronger urge 
than ever from her Voices. 

For Charles could ill afford to lose one of 
the few large and strong towns left to him. Or- 
leans is on the river Loire, which runs almost 
east and west, and then served roughly as a 
boundary line between the territory of the Eng- 
lish and Burgundians to the north, and that of 
the discredited Dauphin to the south. 

The city lay along the right or north bank of 
the river for a little more than half a mile, but 
extended back from the stream for only about 
a hundred and fifty feet. A wall surrounded it, 
furnished with frequent towers and pierced by 
several gates. It was six feet thick and rose 

8i 



82 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

from eighteen to thirty-three feet above the 
Loire and the waters of the inland moat. The 
top was provided with a parapet built with 
niches in which bowmen or slingers might en- 
sconce themselves to send their weapons against 
an attacking enemy. It was the custom when a 
siege was on for the different towers to be de- 
fended each by a different trade or industry. 

Beautiful suburbs, rich in vineyards and gar- 
dens and in handsome churches, lay about the 
city. To the north rose a group of religious 
houses, giving courage to travelers about to 
plunge into the forest visible beyond and along 
the Paris road. To the south, across the river, 
clustered the small houses of a fishing village, 
protected by the fortifications at that end of a 
bridge that crossed the Loire. 

This bridge was famous in its day. It 
spanned a long, boat-shaped island and had 
nineteen arches. From end to end it was cov- 
ered by houses and shops. Such was the fash- 
ion in Paris, and though Orleans was not the 
great city, with its gathering of English and 
Burgundian nobles swaggering across the Seine, 
yet it had its own rank and fashion and the 
bridge over the Loire was traversed by many 
handsomely appointed gentles as well as by the 
simpler folk going and coming from the outly- 
ing farms. 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 83 

Inside the town were narrow streets edged 
by high, gabled dwellings. Here and there a 
church faced an open square. The tovv^ers of 
the Church of the Holy Cross rose straight and 
fair above the lesser buildings. Countless shops 
showed by their swinging signs what wares were 
to be seen within, for there were many indus- 
tries in this city which was the meeting point 
of many roads. 

From the river barges Orleans presented a 
goodly sight. 

Rich in itself and important from its position, 
it is not strange that the English marked it for 
attack. In Normandy and northern France the 
nobles began to gather their feudal followers. 
In England the Earl of Salisbury made great 
preparations for the siege. All the novelties in 
weapons and ammunition then known he col- 
lected and shipped across the Channel. There 
were small cannon that threw small stone balls, 
and larger guns that threw heavy stone balls. 
There were reserve supplies of bows and many 
cases of arrows. There were shields to protect 
the men who attacked the walls of a town and 
they were not at all unlike the old Roman tes- 
tudo arrangement which made a ^^tortoise-shell" 
over the heads of the soldiers so that stones or 
boiling oil or similar attentions showered upon 



84 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

them from above might hurt them as little as a 
rap upon the outer covering of a turtle. 

Including the English in Paris who were to 
join the besiegers, there were about five thou- 
sand men ready to advance upon Orleans — a 
large army for the fifteenth century. However, 
during the southern march, with its seizure of 
some forty towns and villages where garrisons 
were left to hold the places for the invaders, the 
army was much reduced. There were also ad- 
venturers who had come over from England 
for the sake of what they might get in loot, and 
they deserted whenever there seemed a chance 
of feathering their own nests. So it came about 
that before Orleans was reached the Normans 
were called in to help. Later, a few Burgun- 
dians swelled their ranks. 

The city, too, made its preparations as soon as 
it became known that the hostile force was 
marching that way. It laid in stores of food and 
drove in cattle from the country and made ready 
abundant supplies of ammunition. The women 
mixed gunpowder, the quarrymen cut out stone 
cannon balls, the arrow-makers manufactured 
darts, citizens of all classes worked on the walls, 
building up on the inland side wooden breast- 
works that took the place of the parapets erected 
along the riverside. 

Great leaders gathered from south of the 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 85 

Loire — he who was later the Comte de Dunois, 
half-brother of the imprisoned Duke of Orleans 
to whom the city belonged; La Hire, a famous 
swaggerer and swearer but as brave as a lion, 
and others of equal fame. Bands of adventurers 
joined the Armagnacs as well as the Burgun- 
dians, and there were soldiers of fortune within 
the walls from as far away as Italy. 

The position of the city had many advantages. 
In these modern days of high explosives a wall 
counts for little and a river for less against a 
shell sent from a gun so many miles away that 
its gunner cannot see the result of his shot. But 
Orleans had a belt of water and a sturdy, battle- 
mented wall and a fortified bridge to protect it 
from assailants who fought from a distance of 
only a few yards. 

The suburbs were unprotected. Their in- 
habitants retired into the city, thus doubling its 
population, and made the swift sacrifice of de- 
stroying their former homes so that they might 
not give shelter to the enemy. They even partly 
demolished their beautiful churches, and then 
looked forth from the city in which they had 
taken refuge to see the enemy use the ruins as 
the groundwork for bastilles or small fortifica- 
tions. 

The bastilles were constructed by piling up 
earth to a considerable height above the artifi- 



86 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

clal hillocks and then making them still taller 
by driving stakes into the top. 

As the English neared the city the people ap- 
pealed their case to those saints who were sup- 
posed to be especially watchful over Orleans. 
They carried sacred relics about the town and 
sang hymns and chants. But the hostile force 
came nearer and nearer and, even reached the 
south bank suburb before the citizens completed 
their task of destroying it and pulling down its 
church. 

This happened on Tuesday, October 12, 
while Jeanne was still at Domremy, unable to 
interest Robert de Baudricourt to send her into 
"France." The English established themselves 
in the dismantled hamlet, and on the following 
Sunday "shelled" the city with stone cannon 
balls fired from a point of rising ground near 
the end of the bridge. A good many houses 
were injured, but only one person, a woman, 
was killed. 

A few days later what might have proved a 
serious loss to Orleans was made good by the 
energy of the citizens. At the eastern corner 
of the city wall was a group of a dozen flour 
mills run by water power. The enemy batteries 
were almost exactly opposite across the river 
and all twelve were put out of commission. 
This was so important a matter that it had to 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 87 

be remedied at once, and so mills were estab- 
lished within the shelter of the walls and were 
run by horse power. 

Followed busy days for the defenders of the 
bridge. The fighting centered about the little 
fort, at the end farthest from the city, an out- 
work on land protected by two towers (Les 
Tourelles) on the bridge. Once the womon 
helped by pouring down coals and fat and oils 
upon the assailants. A bit later the English un- 
dermined the fort and the French abandoned it, 
cutting through the bridge so as to leave a gap 
of water between its end and the enemy. 

To oblige the French to do this was at least 
an advantage, and the Earl of Salisbury, one 
day toward the end of the month, mounted the 
dismantled tower to look across at the city and 
spy out its weak spots. While he was making 
his observations and being complimented by his 
companion on what he had already done, a can- 
non ball from the town struck the wall near 
him, and sent a splinter of stone against his face 
with such force as to cause a wound from which 
he died a few days after. 

The people of Orleans were overjoyed at the 
death of so important an opponent, but no one 
claimed the credit of so accurate a shot. A citi- 
zen testified that immediately after the shooting 
he had seen a child coming from the tower 



88 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

where the cannon was placed. Perhaps he was 
too frightened at the loud noise his meddling 
had produced to be willing to admit that he 
had touched the weapon. At any rate, Salisbury 
was dead and the English had no one to take 
his place. 

If the French had had some one with initia- 
tive to look to at this juncture, the siege might 
have ended then and there. The English were 
without a leader and most of their army rode 
away to towns not far off, where they could be 
more comfortable during the chilly November 
days and nights. Throughout the whole of the 
month only about five hundred Normans re- 
mained before the city. Dunois and several 
times five hundred Frenchmen were in the city 
at the other end of the broken bridge. If some 
one had had the enterprise to make a sally across 
the river it would seem as if there could have 
been no failure. 

No one had the enterprise for such a sortie, 
but the citizens were not without enterprise of 
another sort. They completed the demolition 
of their lovely suburbs, this time levelling those 
on the west, the side from which they expected 
the English to return. 

Their expectation was fulfilled, but not at 
once. The next reinforcement for the besiegers 
was again at the dismantled fort, and the bom- 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 89 

bardment was renewed and answered vigor- 
ously. A figure of this period of the siege was 
a man who would be called to-day a sharp- 
shooter — one Jean de Montesclere. Instead of 
a rifle he used a small cannon and he seldom 
failed in his aim. At one time he killed five 
persons with two shots. He was something of 
a comedian, and when any of his shots drew a 
return that came near him he pretended to fall 
dead and was ostentatiously carried off by his 
comrades. Then just as the English were clap- 
ping each other on the back in delight at get- 
ting rid of such an annoying fellow, lo, Jean 
appeared at a new point on the wall with his 
cannon and used it with the same uncomforta- 
ble skill. 

When the first Christmas of the Great War 
came about, in 1914, a truce for the day was 
made between the German and the English 
forces. Cigarettes and chocolate were tossed 
from one trench to the other. English voices 
sang English carols, and German voices sang 
Weihnacht hymns. 

Christmas of 1428 was celebrated in much the 
same way at Orleans. The English commander 
sent a messenger to the Count de Dunois to ask 
for musicians to celebrate the feast. Dunois as- 
sented, and the Orleans folk went upon the ram- 



90 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

parts and the bridge to hear the strange music 
from over the stream. 

At the very end of the year, reinforcements 
of English did indeed come by the route w^hich 
the French expected. Not only did they come 
in some numbers, but they began to make a line 
of small forts as a beginning of a complete cir- 
cle v^ith which they hoped to surround the tov^n. 
These bastilles were a little too far apart for 
the soldiers to help each other in case of attack, 
but they served well enough to keep out French 
reinforcements from the west. On the north 
and east, however, there was nothing to pre- 
vent troops and convoys of supplies from en- 
tering, and enter they did. During January and 
February almost two thousand men and many 
hundred cattle and swine on the hoof were wel- 
comed by the besieged. 

^Welcomed," not because the besieged were 
lessened in numbers, nor because they were 
hungry. On the contrary it was the besiegers 
who were the greater sufferers. The winter cli- 
mate of France was no more friendly in the 
fifteenth century than in the twentieth. The 
English were chilled by cold rains and they 
stuck fast in the heavy mud if they tried to move 
from their dugouts and the huts they had made 
for themselves out of the fragments of the 
ruined villages. 



THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS 91 

Once more it would have been easy for the 
French to have put the invaders to flight if they 
had had any united command. As it was, every 
noble led a few men who looked out for them- 
selves and paid little attention to their allies. 

But the English would not go and the Dau- 
phin tried to send more reinforcements. It was 
in February, while three good-sized new bodies 
of men were gathering at Blois to proceed to 
Orleans that there occurred the battle of the 
Herrings, the news of which from Jeanne's lips 
induced Robert de Baudricourt to send her on 
to Chinon. 

One of the nobles waiting at Blois was the 
Count de Clermont, a very young man. He and 
Dunois heard of a convoy of supplies on its way 
to the English, and determined to attack it. A 
part of the force within Orleans was ordered 
to meet them on the road. By chance, these 
men encountered the three hundred wagons of 
enemy food near a village called Rouvray. 
There could not have been a better opportunity 
to fall upon the enemy, but for some reason 
these soldiers, usually so careless about disci- 
pline, refrained from the attack until they had 
obtained permission from the Count de Cler- 
mont. He, wanting to have the credit of the 
victory for himself, forbade them to attack un- 
til he should arrive. The delay was disastrous. 



92 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Taking advantage of the unaccountable post- 
ponement, the English, under Fastolf, arranged 
their wagons in a sort of Boer laager, or fort, 
and repeated the trick that had worked so well 
at Agincourt of driving sharp-pointed stakes 
into the ground to impale the galloping horses. 
Some of the French, still waiting for orders, 
rode o^ around the country looting. Others 
could not resist having a bit of a fight, but they 
were not numerous enough to down the enemy. 
When Clermont arrived at last he showed the 
white feather and made off into Orleans with 
his men. The English pointed their enemies 
discomfiture by nicknaming the fray the Battle 
of the Herrings, because much of this Lenten 
diet was spread over the battlefield from the 
broken casks fallen from the wagons. It was a 
shameful and unnecessary defeat, and it is no 
wonder that Jeanne told Robert de Baudricourt, 
^'To-day the gentle Dauphin hath had great 
hurt near the town of Orleans." 



CHAPTER IX 

"surrender!" 

On the day after the Battle of the Herrings, 
Clermont left Orleans, unwept. The departure 
soon after of several hundred other leaders and 
soldiers was not received so philosophically. In 
their distress the besieged sent messengers to 
their long-time enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, 
to ask him to induce the English to retire. 
While they awaited his reply, they kept on their 
cat and dog warfare with the English. The 
French were overcrowded in the city. The 
English insisted on building bastilles even 
though their pickets and workers were con- 
stantly taken prisoners. They found it difficult 
to obtain food from the depleted country round 
about, while frequent convoys from a distance 
reached the city safely through the north and 
east gates. Occasionally reinforcements swelled 
the army of the besiegers and then the food 
question became more acute than ever. 

When the messengers returned from their in- 
terview with the Duke of Burgundy, the people 

93 



94 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

of Orleans learned that he was willing to take 
them under his protection but that the Regent 
for the little English King of France, Henry, 
refused to agree to the plan. This answer was 
not entirely a disappointment to the French, 
for it meant at least a disagreement among their 
enemies. Such seemed to be the case when a 
Burgundian herald appeared in the English 
camp and anounced that all Burgundians should 
desist from the siege. 

This resulted in the withdrawal of only a few 
hundred men, but it heartened the French. 
Still the persistent English stayed, there were 
many deaths among the French both from 
wounds and disease, and prayers to the patron 
saints of the town seemed to have no visible re- 
sult. Despair was settling over them when they 
learned that a God-sent peasant girl was on her 
way to help them. Messengers brought word 
of her visit to the Dauphin and her examina- 
tions by the learned doctors. Then they heard 
that Charles's mother-in-law was helping to 
equip an expedition of rescue; then that the 
savior-maid was no farther away than Blois. 
On the second day after her leaving Blois they 
could see from the walls her train approaching. 

Dunois went out to meet her. He had to cross 
the river for the Maid and her army came along 
the left bank. This was done in order to avoid 



a 



SURRENDER!" 95 



the large English camps at the west of the town, 
but it obliged the French to transfer their sup- 
plies to lighters and send them upstream, hold- 
ing them until such time as it would be safe to 
unload them at the eastern end of the city where 
the river filled the moat. 

When she understood this arrangement, 
Jeanne was annoyed, for she expected to meet 
the English at once face to face and demand 
their surrender. This would avoid the shed- 
ding of blood, and she had a horror of blood- 
shed. 

Further, the plan was not working well, for 
there was a strong wind blowing in the wrong 
direction and the sailing vessels could make no 
headway against it. The Maid questioned Du- 
nois, with some sharpness. 

"Is it you who said I was to come on this side 
of the river, and that I should not go direct to 
the side where Talbot and the English are?" 
she asked. 

"Yes," answered the Count, "and those more 
wise than I are of the same opinion, for our 
greater success and safety." 

"In God's name," she then said, "the counsel 
of My Lord is safer and wiser than yours. You 
thought to deceive me and it is you yourselves 
who are deceived, for I bring you better succor 
than has ever come to any general or town what- 



96 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

soever — the succor of the King of Heaven. 
This succor does not come from me but from 
God Himself, Who, at the prayers of S'aint 
Louis and Saint Charlemagne, has had com- 
passion on the town of Orleans, and will not 
suffer the enemy to hold at the same time the 
Duke" — ^who was then imprisoned in England 
— "and his town!" 

Thus taken to task, Dunois began to have 
doubts of the wisdom of the scheme, but Jeanne, 
either because she was weather wise, as a peasant 
girl should be, or because her Voices reassured 
her, told him that the wind soon would change. 
By what seemed to the anxious French a mira- 
cle, the wind did change, and blew so strongly 
from the directly opposite point of the compass 
that each of the sailing vessels was able to tow 
two barges. 

Jeanne suffered farther annoyance when she 
learned that it was planned to send her soldiers 
back to Blois to escort another convoy of sup- 
plies. She had influenced these especial men to 
better their speech and their lives. She felt that 
they would fight with more than ordinary 
power. 

On their side, the soldiers were convinced 
that with the holy maid at their head they were 
sure of safety and success, and they wanted to 
keep her with them. 



"SURRENDER!" 97 

"Thereupon," says Dunois, in telling about 
it, "I went in search of the captains who had 
charge of the convoy and the army, and be- 
sought them, for the welfare of the King, to 
allow Jeanne to enter Orleans at once, and that 
they should go up the river — they and the army 
— to Blois. They consented; and Jeanne then 
came with me. She had in her hand a ban- 
ner, white in color, on which was an image of 
Our Lord, holding in His Hand a lily. La 
Hire crossed the Loire at the same time as she, 
and entered the city with her and ourselves." 

Brother Pasquerel, the Maid's confessor, re- 
turned with the soldiers bearing the priest's ban- 
ner, thus trying to remind them of what they 
had promised to their inspired leader. Two 
hundred men-at-arms served as Jeanne's escort, 
and the little band spent the night in the town 
of Checy. 

The next day they all passed at Reuilly, near 
enough to the city for many to ride out to greet 
her. In the evening she entered Orleans, hailed 
as their savior by a multitude of folk, who 
pressed about her, eager to see and acclaim her, 
to touch her stirrup, and to admire the ease 
with which she whirled her horse to beat out 
a flaming pennant. Old men, standing in their 
doorways, wiped away tears as they realized 
that hope had come to the town. Women held 



98 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

up their babies to see her. Children bestrode 
their father's shoulders to get a better view, 
Grandames stretched forth shaking hands 
toward her. 

The beams from hundreds of torches illumi- 
nated her standard, buried themselves in the 
thick coat of her snow-white charger, and flick- 
ered from the metal of her armor. Her serious, 
beautiful face looked out from its silvern casque. 
For this hour, too, she was born. 

As was her custom in the chosen moments of 
her life, she went straightway to the church to 
give thanksgiving. Then she was escorted to 
the house of the Duke of Orleans' treasurer, 
where she and her brothers and Jean de Metz 
and Bertrand were guests. She slept with the 
nine-year-old daughter of the house, who re- 
membered well this privilege when she was a 
woman grown. 

Though Jeanne refused to take her place in 
the battle line before she had summoned the 
English to yield, the townsfolk on the next day, 
April 30, made a sortie and got a drubbing for 
their pains. It was not much of an affair. 

At evening of this day, April 30, Jeanne sent 
two heralds to the English camp bearing a let- 
ter that she had written almost six weeks before 
while she was still at Poitiers. It ran as fol- 
lows : 



^'SURRENDERT' 99 

JHESUS MARIA 

King of England, and you, Duke of Bedford, who call 
yourself Regent of the realm of France, — you Gulllaume de 
la Poule, Earl of Sulford; Jehan, Sire de Talebot, and you 
Thomas, Sire d'Escales, who call yourselves Lieutenants of 
the said Duke of Bedfort, do right in the sight of the King 
of Heaven. Surrender to the Maid * sent hither by God, 
the King of Heaven, the keys of all the good towns in 
France that you have taken and ravaged. She is come here 
in God's name to claim the Blood Royal. She is ready to 
make peace if so be you will do her satisfaction by giving 
and paying back to France what you have taken from her. 
And you, archers, comrades-in-arms, gentle and otherwise, 
who are before the town of Orleans, go ye hence into your 
own land, in God's name. And if you will not, then hear 
the wondrous works of the Maid who will shortly come 
upon you to your very great hurt. And you. King of Eng- 
land, if you do not thus, I am a Chieftain in war * — and in 
whatsoever place in France I meet your men, I will force 
them to depart, "willy nilly" and if they will not, then I 
will have them all slain. I am sent hither by God, the King 
of Heaven, body for body, * to drive them all out of the 
whole of France. And if they obey, then will I show them 
mercy. And think not in your heart that you will hold the 
kingdom of France from God, the King of Heaven, Son of 
the Blessed Mary, for it is King Charles, the true heir, who 
shall so hold it. God, the King of Heaven, so wills it, and 

* In one of her examinations, Jeanne said: ". . . there are, 
nevertheless, two or three words in this copy which were not in 
my letter. Thus, 'Surrender to the Maid' should be replaced by 
'Surrender to the King!' The words, 'body for body' and 'chieftain 
in war' were not in my letter at all." 



lOO THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

he hath revealed it unto King Charles by the Maid. With 
a goodly company the King shall enter Paris. If ye will 
not believe these wondrous works wrought by God and the 
Maid, then in whatsoever place ye shall be, there shall we 
fight. And if ye do me not right, there shall be so great a 
noise as hath not been in France for a thousand years. And 
know ye that the King of Heaven will send such great 
power to the Maid, to her and to her good soldiers, that ye 
will not be able to overcome her in any battle; and in the 
end the God of Heaven will reveal who has the better right. 
You, Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays and beseeches you 
that you bring not destruction upon yourself. If you do her 
right you may come in her company where the French will 
do the fairest deed ever done for Christendom. And if ye 
will have peace in the city of Orleans, then make ye answer ; 
and, if not, then remember it will be to your great hurt and 
that shortly. Written this Tuesday of Holy Week. 

The English thought they would frighten the 
French by detaining one of the heralds — Guy- 
enne — and sending back the other — Ambeville 
— with the story that they intended to burn his 
companion. Jeanne reassured Ambeville and 
told him to return boldly to the English, that 
no evil should happen to him, but that he should 
bring back his comrade safe and sound. 

Guyenne was not burned, but it was only 
because the English, after erecting a stake, hesi- 
tated to break the law that for long centuries 
considered sacred the lives of heralds, and sent 
messengers to Paris to inquire from the Uni- 



"SURRENDER!" loi 

versity whether they had a right to do this deed. 
Before the messengers returned, the siege of 
Orleans was raised and the French, overrunning 
the English camps, found the unlucky Guyenne 
there, alive but in chains. 

At evening the Maid went to the end of the 
broken bridge and summoned the English in 
the severed fortification to surrender or depart. 
They jeered at her, called her a milkmaid, and 
vowed to burn her. Indeed, the English at this 
time were so few in numbers that they fought 
with threats, frequently unfulfilled, and fierce 
cries, and yet they had harassed the French for 
so long that the besieged were broken in nerves 
and often retreated when a hard blow, swiftly 
repeated, with all the leaders cooperating, 
would have driven away the attackers. 

The next day was Sunday, May Day, and Du- 
nois, probably fearing lest Pasquerel should 
prove a less trust-inspiring leader than Jeanne, 
went out on the road toward Blois to meet the 
second convoy. Jeanne and La Hire and some 
of the others drew off the attention of the Eng- 
lish by a pretended sortie from another part of 
the town. 

When they returned, she rode through the 
streets of Orleans visiting the churches. The 
people pressed about her so closely that if she 
had not been a most careful horsewoman she 



I02 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

would have injured some of them. They 
pushed and shoved each other to see her, to 
come near her. On this day she learned some- 
thing of the streets, information which was to 
be useful to her later when she needed one day 
to gallop swiftly from her lodging in the west- 
ern end of town to the Burgundian Gate at 
the eastern end. 

It may have been on this May Day that 
Jeanne heard a great lord, walking along the 
street, begin to swear. Greatly distressed, she 
went up to him and taking him by the neck, 
said, "Ah, master, do you deny Our Lord and 
Master? You shall unsay your words before I 
leave you!" 

So forceful was her speech that the lord re- 
pented and amended his ways forthwith. 

On Monday, in order to while away the time 
until the arrival of the rescuing army from 
Blois, Jeanne, accompanied by a host of the 
townspeople, rode out to investigate the Eng- 
lish fortifications. A crowd of people accom- 
panied her, not at all afraid of their foes as 
long as they were with her, while the English 
were too timid to attack while the Maid rode 
at the head of their opponents. When they re- 
turned, Jeanne went to the cathedral and heard 
mass, as was her daily custom. 

Such appearances of Jeanne in the city did 



^'SURRENDERr 103 

far more than gratify the curiosity of the towns- 
people. There had been no unity among the 
leaders of the French. The people followed 
each his own lord, or, failing any special allegi- 
ance, the man who happened to appeal to him. 
Now they were believing in one person as a 
leader and were looking to one person for guid- 
ance. Jeanne rode out of the city on a trip to 
examine the English fortifications as fearlessly 
as any knight they had known. The marvel of 
her courage made them feel that she was telling 
nothing but the truth when she said that she 
claimed no merit for herself in this enterprise, 
since all that was done was God's doing. 



CHAPTER X 

CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP AND THE AUGUSTINS 

Tuesday^ May 3, was a church festival, and 
Jeanne took part in the procession. On that 
day the forces of the besieged were increased 
by the coming of three small garrisons from 
outlying villages. Messengers brought word, 
also, that the army from Blois, led by Brother 
Pasquerel under Jeanne's priests' banner, and 
convoying provisions and other supplies, was 
not far off. 

The English must have had at least equal 
opportunity of knowing that this new army was 
coming, if they had any scouting force at all, 
but they stayed snugly in their bastilles and al- 
lowed Jeanne and La Hire and several hundred 
soldiers to ride out unhindered on the morning 
of the fourth to meet the newcomers. 

By dinner-time, which was early, all the new 
army was established and Dunois, dining with 
Jeanne, was telling her the news. The most 
important bit was that Fastolf, the same Eng- 
lish general who had defeated the French at 
the always-to-be-regretted Battle of the Her- 

104 



CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP 105 

rings, was again escorting a convoy of provisions 
for the English. Jeanne was intensely inter- 
ested, and in the same jokingly exaggerated way 
in which she spoke of her Burgundian neigh- 
bor at Domremy she insisted that she should be 
told at once of the arrival of this force. 

''If he passes without my knowledge, I will 
have your head!" she cried energetically. 

Dunois laughingly promised that he would 
inform her and then departed. Jeanne, tired 
after her morning's ride, lay down with her lit- 
tle hostess, Charlotte. Her equerry, d'Aulon, 
was resting on a couch in the same room. In 
his deposition he says: ''But, as the Deponent 
was beginning to take his rest, suddenly the 
Maid, though asleep, arose from her bed, and 
making a great noise, awoke him. And then 
the Deponent asked her what she wanted; to 
which she answered: 'My Counsel hath told 
me that I should attack the English ; but I know 
not if I should attack their bastilles or go against 
Fastolf, who should victual them.' " 

She had awakened so quickly at the call of 
her Voices that she had not received their full 
message. D'Aulon and Madame Boucher and 
Charlotte helped her put on her armor. 
Brother Pasquerel and the other priests with 
him went to see Jeanne after they had had their 
dinner, and they found her crying haste to those 



io6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

who were arming her, for "The blood of our 
people is flowing!" 

Dashing down stairs, she met Louis, her page, 
and reproached him for not telling her that a 
fight was in progress. 

"Bloodthirsty boy!" she cried, "you did not 
tell me that the blood of France was being 
shed!" 

Louis brought her horse and then rushed up- 
stairs and handed her standard to her out of 
the window. Making no wrong turn, she gal- 
loped through the city streets to the Burgun- 
dian Gate at the opposite end of the town. On 
the way she met many wounded French and 
was greatly distressed at the sight. On she 
rushed, all of fighting strength who met her 
falling in behind. 

Although the English intended to ring the 
city with small forts in order to control the 
coming and going of men and provisions, they 
had done almost nothing at the eastern side. 
But one bastille was there, a fortification of a 
former church which had been one of those 
partly destroyed by the French when they heard 
of the approach of their foes. The place was 
held by about a hundred and fifty English. 
Jeanne led the attack against it, and the French, 
with but small hurt, entirely defeated the 
English. 



CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP 107 

Jeanne gave orders that none of the property 
which had been left in the church by the priests 
when the building was razed should be taken 
as loot even though it had been in the hands 
of the enemy, and she even bade her soldiers 
spare some Englishmen who had tried to escape 
by putting on the monks' vestments which they 
found in the ruined tower. 

Pasquerel says that the Maid was extremely 
tender-hearted. '^When the Fort of Saint Loup 
was taken, the English died there in great num- 
bers. Jeanne was much afflicted when she heard 
that they had died without confession and pitied 
them much. On the spot she made her confes- 
sion. She ordered me to invite the whole army 
to do likewise, and to give thanks to God for 
the victory just gained. Otherwise, she said, 
she would help them no more, but would aban- 
don them." 

They obeyed her. 

Talbot, rather late in the day to accomplish 
anything, led out a force of English from his 
bastilles on the western end of the city. Be- 
fore he could reach the far eastern end he 
learned of the discomfiture of the garrison at 
Saint Loup, and prudently withdrew. 

The Maid in action was invincible. She was 
so conscious of the power that worked through 
her that she prophesied that within five days 



io8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

from that time the siege would be raised and 
that not a single Englishman would be left 
within the walls of Orleans. Her prophecy 
came true with a margin of time to spare. 

May 5 was Ascension Day and the Maid kept 
the festival, not putting on her armor and insist- 
ing that none of the soldiers should go into ac- 
tion until he had confessed. 

But no action was planned. Thinking that 
the enemy would be impressed by their failure 
of the previous day and so would listen more 
willingly to a demand for surrender, Jeanne 
went in person to the end of the bridge near- 
est the southern bank of the river. It was a 
fearless thing to do, for she was exposed to fire 
from the Tourelles, now in the enemy's power. 
The English guard probably believed her to 
be possessed either by God or the Devil, for 
he made no attempt to shoot her. The letter 
which she had caused to be written read as 
follows : 

"You, men of England, who have no right in this king- 
dom of France, the King of Heaven orders and commands 
you by me, Jeanne the Maid, that you quit your strong 
places and return to your own country; if you do not I will 
cause you such an overthrow as shall be remembered for all 
time. I write to you for the third and last time and shall 
write to you no more." 



CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP 109 

The signature was ''Jhesus Maria, JEHANNE 
LA PUCELLE." 

By way of postcript was added: 

"I would have sent you this letter in a more suitable 
manner, but you keep back my heralds: you have kept my 
herald Guyenne; I pray you to send him back, and I w^ill 
send you some of your people who have been taken at the 
Fort of Saint Loup — for not all were killed there." 

As soon as this letter was written, says Jean 
Pasquerel, Jeanne took an arrow, on the point 
of which she fastened the letter with a thread, 
and ordered an archer to shoot the arrow 
towards the English, crying out, ^^Read! Here 
is news!" 

The English read the letter and then shouted 
back many insults to Jeanne, so distressing her 
that she burst into tears. As any religious girl 
would, under such circumstances, she prayed 
for consolation, and it was not long before she 
regained her composure, telling Brother Pas- 
querel that she had had news from her Lord. 

On this day there was a conference of the 
leaders, and they decided to make an attack the 
next day, Friday the 6th, upon the Fort of Saint 
John across the river. They put no great confi- 
dence in the soldierly qualities of the townspeo- 
ple and did not intend to allow them to have a 
part in this encounter. As Jeanne, however, 



no THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

rode through the city toward the eastern — Bur- 
gundian — gate, at the appointed hour in the 
afternoon of Friday, she was followed by a 
crowd of fighting men, eager to try their luck 
under her standard. At the gate there were 
men-at-arms who tried to prevent the departure 
of this undependable band, but they nearly lost 
their lives in consequence, so fiercely did the 
citizens crowd against them. 

"You are a bad man," cried Jeanne indig- 
nantly to the leader at the gate. "Whether you 
like it or not, these men-at-arms are coming and 
they will be as successful as they were before." 

The passage across the river was made by a 
bridge of boats and brought the attacking party 
to the shore directly in front of the bastille of 
Saint John. Having no wish to meet the 
Heaven-sent Maid face to face after their in- 
sults to her when separated by a bow-length of 
water, the English deserted the fort and took 
refuge in the stronger fort which they had 
erected on the site of the monastery of the Au- 
gustins. 

This fortification was much stronger than the 
ordinary bastille and the French were now 
seized with their usual fear that they would not 
be able to make a successful attack. As was 
their custom — the custom that had allowed the 
city to remain besieged for nearly seven months 



CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP in 

—they retreated. But this time they had as 
leader not some knight, brave in personal en- 
counter but no director of men. They had, it is 
true, a Maiden, but one whose rallying cry 
thrilled the most cowardly, the most confused. 

As they retired they met Jeanne and La Hire 
who had been detained by the necessity of bring- 
ing their horses across slowly on the bridge of 
boats. As soon as these two set foot on land they 
flung themselves upon their horses, set their 
lances in rest, and spurred on toward the threat- 
ening fort, Jeanne crying, "Let us advance bold- 
ly in God's name!" The English had rushed 
out to drive the French down to the river, but 
the two leaders hurled themselves at them and 
their own men rallied around them. The Eng- 
lish thought it wise to retire within their pali- 
sade. 

Jeanne's equerry, d'Aulon, tells the story of 
the attack that ensued. 

"And while this was going on, the Deponent, 
being in guard of a passage with others appoint- 
ed and ordered thereto — among whom was a 
very valiant man-at-arms of the country of 
Spain, named Alphonse de Partada — saw pass- 
ing before them another man-at-arms of their 
company, a tall man, big and well-armed, to 
whom, because he was about to pass on, the De- 
ponent remarked that he ought to remain there 



112 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

for a time, with the others, and make resistance 
to the enemy, should need arise; and he imme- 
diately replied that he would do nothing of the 
kind. Then Alphonse said he also would re- 
main with the others, and that there were many 
as valiant men as he who would remain willing- 
ly; who answered Alphonse that it would not 
be he. Upon which there were between them 
certain proud words, so much that they decided 
to go, both of them, the one and the other 
against the enemy; and then it would be seen 
which was the more valiant, and which of the 
two would best do his duty. And, taking one 
another by the hand, at the greatest pace they 
could, they went towards the fort of the enemy, 
and so to the foot of the palisade. 

^That, as they reached the palisade of the 
fort, the Deponent saw within the palisade a 
tall, strong, and powerful Englishman, armed 
at all points, who so resisted them that they could 
not enter. Then the Deponent showed the Eng- 
lishman to a man named Jean the Cannoneer, 
telling him to shoot at the Englishman; for he 
was doing much harm and injury to those who 
wished to approach the fort. This Jean did; 
for, as soon as he saw him, he aimed a shot at 
him, so that he fell dead to the ground; then 
the two men-at-arms won the passage by which 
all the others of their company crossed, and 



CAPTURE OF SAINT LOUP 113 

entered the fort, which most fiercely and with 
great persistence they assailed on all sides, so 
that within a short time they won it and took 
it by assault. There were killed or taken the 
greater part of the enemy; and those who were 
able to save themselves retreated into the Fort 
of Tourelles at the foot of the bridge. Thus 
the Maid and those who were with her ob- 
tained victory over the enemy that day." 

A body of French was left at the Augustins 
to prevent any attempt at recovery by the Eng- 
lish. Jeanne went home, and, exhausted with 
fighting all day and suffering from a wound in 
her foot, which had been hit by a missile, broke 
her fast, although it was her habit to eat nothing 
on Fridays. 

In spite of the day's successes, one of the lead- 
ers came to her and reported that all the cap- 
tains, assembled in council, were of the opinion 
that, considering the great numbers of the foe 
and that the town was well provisioned, it would 
be the best plan to await further reinforcements 
from the king before fighting again. 

Jeanne had the military instinct that bade her 
strike hard and strike often and she answered, 
it may be with some disgust: ^'You have been 
to your Counsel and I have been to mine; and 
you may believe what I say — the Counsel of 



114 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

God will be accomplished and will succeed; 
yours, on the contrary, will perish." 

The next day was to hold the Maid's hour of 
victory, though she was to make good her 
prophecy of over a fortnight before, that she 
would be wounded. 



CHAPTER XI 

"we shall enter the town this night by 

THE bridge'' 

Heedless of her injured foot, Jeanne rose 
early the next morning (Saturday, May 7), 
made her confession to Brother Pasquerel, and 
heard mass. Out in the street she went, finding 
the citizens busily carrying food and ammuni- 
tion to the soldiers who had spent the night 
across the river holding the captured fort. 

It was Jeanne's part to go with them and to 
keep up their courage, which might be put to 
the test by the discouraging lack of push of their 
leaders. 

The French knights probably hesitated be- 
cause they saw the possibilities of attack by the 
English better than did the English themselves. 
By their defeat at Saint Loup the English had 
lost control of the river at the east of the city, 
but they still held a bastille on an island in the 
river to the west of the town and another on 
the main land to the south. It would have been 
easy for them to have sent a force over during 
the night to attack the French garrisoned in the 

115 



ii6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

old Augustinian monastery-fort. It would be 
equally easy for them to send reinforcements to 
the help of their men stationed in the Tourelles 
at the end of the bridge, which, their common- 
sense told them, would be the next point of at- 
tack by the French. It would also be easy and 
natural for Talbot to throw a heavy force from 
his big camp at the west of the city against the 
western gate while the townspeople were out 
across the river attacking the Tourelles. 

Why the English did none of these things no 
one has ever been able to explain, unless it was 
that their jeers at the Maid really proceeded 
from quaking hearts. Indeed, far from send- 
ing forces across the river, they spent the night 
in destroying their bastille on the south bank to 
the west of the fort they had lost the day before. 
Depriving themselves of this strong point 
seemed to the French so stupid that they could 
only believe more strongly than ever that it 
meant that Talbot was gathering his forces in 
his western camp in order to make a savage at- 
tack on the western wall. 

Evident as this seemed to the French leaders, 
Jeanne had an instinctive knowledge that this 
would not happen. It did not happen. Talbot 
never left his camp and bore no aid at all to his 
beleaguered friends. 

Jeanne's instinct also told her that the thing 



^ WE SHALL ENTER THE TOWN" 1 17 

to do was to attack the English garrison in the 
Tourelles. The citizens crowded about her 
horse, pleading that she should accomplish her 
mission from God and from the King. 

''I will, in truth,'' she answered, heartily, 
adding, prophetically, ^We shall enter the town 
this night by the bridge," and shouting an old 
battle cry, ''Let him who loves me follow me." 

To a man who brought her a fine fish just as 
she was starting out, she said, "We will have it 
for supper to-night. I will bring you back an 
Englishman who shall share it with us." 

The Tourelles, the center of the fighting of 
this famous day, was a pair of towers built on 
the bridge near its southern end. Early in the 
siege the French had isolated it by destroying 
two arches on the town side. Then the English 
had undermined its outwork, and the French, 
fearing to be entrapped in its fall, had abandoned 
it to the foe. 

The English in possession of the tower-fort 
strengthened it, so that now it stood as stoutly as 
ever, surrounded with water as by a moat, for 
a bridge arch had been destroyed between it and 
the mainland. It was bristling with guns, and 
was no mean fortification as long as food and 
ammunition held out. On the mainland was an 
outwork to receive the first assault from that 
side. Its garrison could take refuge in the Tou- 



iii8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

relies, if they were hard pressed, by dashing 
over an improvised drawbridge and pulling it 
up after them. On the other side there was a 
bit of simple, fortified work on the edge of the 
broken arch, facing a similar small affair built 
by the French at their end of the gap whence 
Jeanne had forwarded her letter from the 
archer's bow. 

The French plan on this Saturday morning, 
the seventh of May, was to gain possession of 
the outwork on the mainland. They were under 
no illusion as to its strength. They had built it 
themselves so massively that the English had 
gained it only after a terrific fight. They had 
watched it being rebuilt with every strong point 
made stronger. They knew that to take it would 
require all their instruments of attack and they 
brought them over from the city in liberal num- 
bers. 

The first weapons to be used would naturally 
be something to protect the attacking party from 
the missiles thrown at them by the men within 
the wall. These were huge shields to be held 
over their heads to ward off the stones and jave- 
lins and pots of boiling oil that might be hurled 
over the rampart at them. Under the cover of 
these shields they might get near enough to the 
earthworks to dig into them to undermine them. 
Mounting on ladders they could reach the pali- 



^WE SHALL ENTER THE TOWN" 1119 

sades and beat against them with heavy ham- 
mers or hack at them with axes. 

In such a comparatively small space not many 
men could be used of all those ready for the as- 
sault, but one party after another raised the scal- 
ing ladders and tried again and again to climb 
over the palisade. The English pushed over 
the ladders, tumbling the French down to the 
foot of the hillock. The French in the rear 
drew their arrors to the full length of the shaft 
and the English bowmen exchanged shots with 
them. Weapons whirled in the air and many a 
soldier fell. Jeanne stood at the head of her 
men, cheering them on, and always in the thick 
of the fray, though she herself never killed any 
one and usually kept her standard in her hand 
so that she might not be carried away in the 
excitement and do something to one of God's 
creatures that she would be sorry for later on. 

After the dinner hour — that is, at about mid- 
day — one of Jeanne's prophecies was fulfilled. 
While planting a ladder against the fort she was 
wounded by an arrow or cross-bolt that struck 
her between the neck and the shoulder, piercing 
the flesh so that it came out at the back. 

Then for a short time Jeanne, the leader of 
men, became only a little girl, hurt and in pain. 
In a short three months she had passed from 
the tending of her flocks to acquaintance with 



120 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

the noblest in the land and from that to shar- 
ing the dangers of the roughest men-at-arms. 
An agile spirit to adapt itself to such profound 
changes! Now she was to show that her belief 
in God carried her through this sudden on- 
slaught on her nerves. 

It was customary then for soldiers to say a 
charm when wounded, and Jeanne's followers 
wanted to try this method of helping her. She 
would have none of it. In an instant her tears 
were dried. 

"I would rather die than do a thing I know 
to be a sin," she said, adding frankly: "If my 
wound may be healed without sin I shall be glad 
enough to be cured." 

Months later she told her examiners that at 
this time she "had great comfort from Saint 
Catherine, and was cured in less than a fort- 
night"; and, "I did not interrupt for this either 
my riding or work." 

Meanwhile, those about her took off her ar- 
mor and applied a dressing of olive oil and lard 
to the wound, and the staunch girl was soon on 
her feet, urging on the soldiers, though it was 
contrary to the judgment of the best leaders of 
her own side. 

"Have no doubt; the place will fall to us," 
she reassured them. 

Dunois and some of the others could not be- 



"WE SHALL ENTER THE TOWN" 1211 

lieve her, for they were exhausted after the long 
day, and at eight o'clock in the evening they saw 
no hope of success. Against her desire, they 
ordered the trumpeters to sound the recall — 
an order welcome to the weary French and joy- 
ously heard by the victorious English. 

But not yet were the English really victori- 
ous. Begging Dunois not to allow his men to 
retire across the river, Jeanne went into a near- 
by vineyard and fell on her knees before the 
Lord. For a quarter of an hour she prayed, 
urging that her own spirit of faith and confi- 
dence be given to her followers. Then she re- 
turned to the fight to which Dunois had again 
summoned his men. 

D'Aulon, Jeanne's equerry, conceived the 
plan of carrying the Maid's standard close to 
the fortification in the hope that the French 
might be encouraged to follow and make an- 
other and more furious attack. He gave the 
standard to a Basque and himself sprang into 
the trench at the foot of the fort, expecting the 
Basque to follow him as he clambered up the 
embankment. Before the man did so, the Maid 
saw her standard in the hands of a stranger and 
believed that she had lost it. She reached over 
into the trench and seized the end of the 
streamer. She was trying to regain it, but to 
her men-at-arms it looked as if she were sig- 



122 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

nailing them to make an attack. At the same 
instant d'Aulon cried to the Basque, reproach- 
ing him for not coming after him. The Basque 
jerked the standard out of the Maid's detaining 
fingers and rushed up the slope after d'Aulon. 

"Watch," cried Jeanne to a knight who stood 
beside her. "When you see the wind drive the 
banner toward the fort it will be yours." 

And so it happened, for as the end of the 
standard touched the wall, the French dashed 
forward in an attack that proved irresistible. 
Over the palisade they went, cutting and slash- 
ing and crushing as they fell. Within the fort 
the fight was furious, and so filled with assur- 
ance were the French that the English soon 
gave way before them and made a swift retreat 
across the drawbridge to seek refuge in the Tou- 
relles. 

The citizens of Orleans had prepared for just 
this happening. They had filled a barge with 
all sorts of things that would burn easily and 
fiercely and when they saw that the English 
were seeking escape they sent this simple engine 
under the improvised wooden drawbridge and 
set it on fire. Beneath the weight of the heav- 
ily armored men, the timbers cracked. Jeanne, 
at this moment of victory over a foe who had 
never ceased to insult her, was seized with pity. 

"Clasdas! Clasdas!" she cried to Glasdale. 



^WE SHALL ENTER THE TOWN" 123 

"Yield thee, yield thee to the King of Heaven! 
You called me by a vile name, but I have great 
pity on your souls and the souls of your com- 
pany." 

A few of the English managed to reach the 
Tourelles. If they strained their eyes to see 
help coming from Talbot, they gazed in vain. 
Glasdale and many others, crossing to help them 
resist an unexpected attack from the side of the 
city, fell into the river through the burning 
bridge, were drawn to the bottom of the stream 
by their heavy armor, and were drowned. 

The attack from the city side seemed to the 
exhausted and astonished Englishmen as if the 
forces from Heaven had conspired against 
them. For along a slender plank over the brok- 
en arches advanced the mail-clad figure of the 
Prior of the Knights of Malta, seeming to his 
opponents to be one of the militant angels com- 
ing to the assistance of the Heaven-sent Maid. 
Man after man followed him and the English, 
trapped in the Tourelles, gave up their lives. 
Not one was left alive. 

The Maid fulfilled her prophecy, and re- 
entered the town by the bridge that had been 
closed to the citizens since the last week of the 
previous October. She had opened it and res- 
cued Orleans from its invaders within nine days 



124 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

after her arrival on the scene. This was the 
sign she had promised the wise men at Poitiers. 
Thus was the first part of her mission accom- 
plished. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE GIRL GENERAU 

When Jeanne reentered Orleans in triumph 
over the bridge, she and her companions were 
hailed by a rejoicing throng of townspeople. 
Wives flung their arms around the necks of their 
victorious husbands, brought safely back to 
them by the militant Maid ; mothers wept tears 
of happiness on the shoulders of their sons. 
They, with the old men and the children who 
had been watching the fight all day and had 
been doing each his part in the manufacture and 
carrying of munitions, crowded about the won- 
derful girl whose generalship had brought to 
pass this long-delayed event. 

The credit for the success was hers and was 
given to her unreservedly. Even so unfriendly 
a modern historian as Anatole France says: '^It 
was the first time that Jeanne had seen a fight, 
yet as soon as she went into battle she became 
the leader because she was the best. She did 
better than the others, not because she knew 
more about it; she knew less about it. But she 

125 



126 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

had nobility of heart When every one was 
thinking of himself alone, she was thinking of 
all of them; when every one was taking care 
for himself she took no care for herself at all, 
having previously made in spirit her great sac- 
rifice. And this child, who, like all other hu- 
man creatures, feared suffering and death, who 
knew through her Voices and her premonitions 
that she would be wounded, went right to the 
front, and, under the bolts from the cross-bows 
and the balls from the culverins, stood on the 
edge of the trench, her standard in her hand, to 
rally her forces." 

As always, Jeanne's first act on her return 
was to go to church and give thanks for the joy 
that had come to her in this step toward the 
establishment of her King upon his throne. 
Then she went home to the house of the treas- 
urer where her wound was dressed. Probably 
her surgeon advised against her eating any of 
the fish that had been brought to her in the 
morning, for she is said to have broken her long 
day's fast only by eating a little bread dipped 
in weak wine and water. After two such weary- 
ing days she must have slept soundly if her 
aching shoulder would let her. 

Tired as she was, she took no chances with 
Talbot and the English who were left. At sun- 
rise she was up and armed, although her wound 



THE GIRL GENERAL 127 

would allow of her wearing only a light coat 
of mail. Out through the western gate near 
the house of her host she went at the head of 
the French troops and there she saw drawn up 
in battle array Talbot and his men. The Eng- 
lish general sent a challenge to the French, but 
Jeanne refused a reply for a time. "She sent 
to fetch a table, and had the ornaments of the 
Church brought, and two Masses were celebrat- 
ed which she and the whole army heard with 
great devotion," says a witness of the scene. 
"Mass being ended, Jeanne asked if the English 
had their faces turned toward us; she was told 
no, that their faces were turned towards Meung. 
Hearing this she said: 'In God's name, they are 
going; let us give thanks to God and pursue 
them no farther, because it is Sunday.' " 

Another witness says that the English fled. 
"When Jeanne saw them in flight, and the 
French following after, she said to the French: 
'Let the English go and slay them not; let them 
go; it is enough for me that they have re- 
treated.' " 

The English took with them their prisoners 
and what light supplies and equipment they 
could handle easily, but left behind them their 
sick, who could not be transported without dif- 
ficulty, and their heavy artillery. 

While the defeated enemy was marching to- 



128 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

ward Meung, the lighter-minded of the French 
rummaged through the English camp, taking 
stock of all that had been left behind. Jeanne 
and her household and the more serious leaders 
of Charles's army made a solemn procession 
through the city and listened to a sermon of 
thanksgiving and joy. 

They might give thanks in all sincerity, for 
the Maid had in a few short weeks turned an 
army that was almost a rabble into a unified 
body following gratefully a single leader. She 
had bridled their tongues and had so filled them 
with confidence that, according to Dunois, "the 
English who, up to that time, could, I affirm, 
with two hundred of their men have put to rout 
eight hundred or a thousand of ours — ^were un- 
able, with all their power, to resist four hundred 
or Rye hundred French." 

The feeling of the soldiers toward Jeanne is 
expressed in a play called The Mystery of the 
Siege, which was popular about a quarter of a 
century after the deliverance of Orleans. "Un- 
der the Maid's standard," says one of the char- 
acters, proudly, "one of us was equal to a hun- 
dred of them!" 

A notary of Orleans was even more enthusi- 
astic. The deliverance of the city was, he said, 
"the most extraordinary miracle that has been 
seen since the Passion," 



THE GIRL GENERAL 129 

Luillier, a citizen of Orleans, testified that 
after the Maid had sent her summons to the 
English they "were terrified, nor had they power 
to resist as before; so that a few of our people 
might often fight with a great number of the 
English and in such manner that they no longer 
dared to come out of their forts." 

Maitre Viole, a lawyer, reported that "It was 
said that Jeanne was as expert as possible in the 
art of ordering an army in battle, and that even 
a captain bred and instructed in war could not 
have, shown more skill.'^ He adds, rather drily, 
"At this the captains marveled exceedingly." 
As well they might, since the untaught girl was 
beating them at their own profession. 

The soldiers, too, were amazed, according to 
Dame Marguerite La Touroulde, wife of one 
of the King's Councilors, and Jeanne's hostess 
at Bourges after the coronation. "She rode on 
horseback and handled the lance like the best 
of the knights," she said, "and the soldiers mar- 
veled." 

A knight, the Seigneur de Termes, saw 
Jeanne "at the assault of the Forts of Saint 
Loup, the Augustins, Saint Jean-le-Blanc, and 
at the Bridge. In all these assaults she was so 
valorous and comported herself in such a man- 
ner as would not have been possible to any man, 
however well versed in war; and all the cap- 



I30 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

tains marveled at her valor and activity and at 
her endurance." 

^^Apart from affairs of war she was simple 
and innocent," he continues, ^'but in the conduct 
and disposition of troops and in actual warfare, 
in the ordering of battle and in animating the 
soldiers, she behaved as the most skilled cap- 
tain in the world who all his life had been 
trained in the art of war." 

In almost the same words the Duke d'Alen- 
gon bears witness to the Maid's military ability. 
"In all she did except in affairs of war she was 
a very simple young girl," was his opinion; "but 
for warlike things — bearing the lance, assem- 
bling an army, directing artillery — she was most 
skilful. Every one wondered that she could act 
with as much wisdom and foresight as a captain 
who had fought for twenty or thirty years. It 
was above all in making use of artillery that she 
was so wonderful." 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FESTIVAL OF MAY 8 

Jeanne's celebration of the saving of Orleans 
was the first of many that have taken place on 
the historic date, May 8. Except during the 
years of the French Revolution, there has been 
no break in the citizens' expressions of thanks- 
giving during the almost five centuries that have 
passed since Jeanne returned home across the 
bridge. The people of Orleans perform this 
duty not only in honor of the Maid, but also as 
an appreciation of their understanding of their 
country's one-pointed purpose. In the Great 
War the Frenchman fought for France, la 
patrie, and this devoted love for the land of his 
fathers came into being from the example set 
by the Maid of Orleans. Before her time there 
w^as no nation, only a group of separate peoples. 
Her single-minded purpose drew the French to- 
gether though it was not accomplished until 
after long and bitter years. 

An American poet has sung the praises of the 
French, comparing the nation's ecstasy and suf- 
fering with Jeanne's: 

131 



132 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

* As Joan of Arc amid the apple trees 
With sacred joy first heard the Voices, then 
Obeying, plunged at Orleans in a field 
Of spears, and lived her dream and died in fire. 
Thou, France, hast heard the Voices and hast lived 
The dream and knovt^n the meaning of the dream, 
And read its riddle: How the soul of man 
May to one great purpose make itself 
A lens of clearness, how it loves the cup 
Of deepest truth, and how its bitterest gall 
Turns sweet to soul's surrender. 

The anniversary of the deliverance of Orleans 
was declared a festival for all of France by 
Louis XI, son of Jeanne's Dauphin, and was 
confirmed by Cardinal Richelieu, in Louis 
XIII's reign. The chief celebration is, of 
course, in Orleans. A French writer t of to-day 
describes the appearance of the city and the 
happenings which he has seen many times: 

^'The bell that witnessed the siege, the very 
same that gave warning of the movements of 
the English, strikes the quarters. Its sonorous 
vibrations drift over the whole city, entering 
the narrow, tortuous streets of old Orleans, pen- 
etrating the dwellings, awakening in every heart 
the memory of the deliverance. In a few mo- 
ments all the clocks of the city parishes answer 

* From "O Glorious France," by Edgar Lee Masters, 
t Leon'Denis. 



THE FESTIVAL OF MAY 8 133 

Its call, making a concert that dominates the 
grave notes from the belfry. 

"The whole town is decorated and adorned. 
Banners float from the buildings; in every bal- 
cony and every window the national flags are 
combined with the colors and arms of the Maid. 

"Crowds fill the squares and streets. Many 
people are from the vicinity, but others have 
come from remote parts of France and even 
from foreign countries. An item worthy of 
note is that the English come every year in great 
numbers to take part in the festival of the Lor- 
raine Maid. 

"Nowhere else is Jeanne's memory so alive. 
At Orleans everything speaks of her. Every 
street corner, every monument recalls some de- 
tail of the siege. For four centuries France 
forgot Jeanne. Silence and shadow enveloped 
her memory; Orleans alone never forgot her. 

"In 1430, a year after the raising of the siege, 
the commemorative ceremony and procession 
were instituted, and at each celebration clergy 
and municipality, in noble emulation, try to 
give the festival some new attraction. The re- 
membrance of Jeanne is the only thing that can 
unite thoughts and hearts as it unites France in 
the hour of supreme disaster. 

"In the evening of the seventh of May at 
eight o'clock, Jeanne, victorious at the Tou- 



134 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

relies, reentered the besieged city. A moving, 
unforgettable ceremony consecrates this mem- 
ory every year. The mayor, preceded by the 
heroine's banner, white with gold fleurs-de-lis, 
and followed by the city councilors, issues from 
the City Hall and in the square before the ca- 
thedral, puts the sacred standard into the hands 
of the Bishop, who is surrounded by his clergy 
and by foreign prelates. 

"The troops form a square, where the basilica 
of the Holy Cross rears its massive towers, the 
cannon thunders, the signal bell, the great bell 
of the cathedral, the bells of the churches re- 
sound to their utmost. The doors of the vast 
edifice open. The procession of bishops and 
priests slowly crosses the threshold and stands 
in the porches. Before them are displayed the 
banners of the patron saints of the city. The 
miters and crosses gleam in the light of the 
torches carried by the cavaliers. Fires suddenly 
lighted within the towers illuminate them with 
fantastic colors. A purple light is spread over 
the rose windows, the gables, the whole stone 
fretwork of the fagade, the floating banners, the 
stoles and the surplices. 

"Five hundred voices sing the Hymn of the 
Standard: 

"Standard of deliverance, 
You led our fathers on that splendid day; 



THE FESTIVAL OF MAY 8 135 

Sons of our fathers, like them now we say, 
Hail, O Jeanne ! All hall, O France ! 

"A tremor, a deep-drawn sigh passes over the 
attentive crowd. Heads bow before the white, 
lily-strewn banner that slowly mounts the steps 
and disappears beneath the arches, like a phan- 
tom of the Lorraine Maiden returning on the 
night of her anniversary. 

''The grilles are closed; the flames are extin- 
guished; the harmony is silent, the crowd melts 
away, and the basilica stands silent and somber 
in the darkness. 

''On the eighth of May at ten o'clock, beneath 
the rays of the sun, the cathedral flings wide 
her display of pennants and flags. The interior 
decoration is sober and very effective. Lofty 
banners of red and gold, the colors of Orleans, 
adorn the choir. On the pillars of the nave are 
hung the coats of arms of Dunois and the other 
companions of the Maid. At the height of the 
organ, dominating all, are suspended Jeanne's 
coat of arms, framed in white cloth. There is 
not an empty spot in the huge nave. All France 
— the army, magistracy, clergy, municipal 
powers, citizens, artisans — is represented in this 
crowd. The charming frocks and flower- 
wreathed hats of the young women are mingled 
with braided uniforms, the red robes of the 



136 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

judges and the black coats of the civil function- 
aries. 

"The service begins by Gounod's Mass in 
'Memory of Jeanne D'Arc, Warlike trumpet 
blasts unite in harmony with the organs ; then a 
choir of young girls sing leanness Voices by the 
same composer. Their pure tones fall from the 
high choir loft as if they were celestial accents. 
For a moment earth, with its pains and sorrows, 
is forgotten. 

"Follows the panegyric, pronounced by the 
Bishop of Orleans. When the orator descends 
from the pulpit the crowd makes its way to the 
square before the cathedral, and mingles with 
the bishops, the banners and relics, and the tra- 
ditional procession, two kilometers long, passes 
under the cloudless sky through the decorated 
streets. It stops at the victory stations made by 
Jeanne in besieged Orleans. 

"On the site of the fort of the Tourelles a 
modest cross recalls her who, as the inscription 
says, ^By her valor saved the city, France and her 
king.' This is the last stop, while the cannon re- 
sounds anew and military music salutes the stan- 
dard. The procession returns to its point of 
departure and then disperses." 

Before the City Hall of Orleans stands a 
statue of Jeanne, a pensive, girlish figure. The 
Princess Marie d'Orleans was the sculptor. 



THE FESTIVAL OF MAY 8 137 

Since the separation of church and state in 
France in the early part of this century, some 
changes have been made in the program of the 
celebration. The city officials do not take part 
in a body in the church ceremonies, though they 
may do so individually. In May, 1907, Jeanne's 
standard was presented to the troops before the 
City Hall by the Mayor of the city. He and the 
councilors stood behind the illuminated statue 
of the Maid, the golden lilies on her standard 
gleaming in the electric lights that have suc- 
ceeded the torches of the ancient days. 

In May, 1909, Jeanne was beatified by the 
Church which she loved, as a first step to her 
canonization. In the church of Saint Peter at 
Rome her veiled picture was framed by the 
gloria above the altar. When she was declared 
worthy of beatification, the veil fell aside, lights 
flashed out around the gloria, the bells of the 
church rang forth, and the choir sang the Te 
Deum, 

In the same year in America a famous actress, 
Maud Adams, gave Schiller's drama, Jeanne 
d'Arc, in the great stadium of Harvard Univer- 
sity. 

As the five-hundredth anniversary of the 
Maid's birth, the year 19 12 was marked by es- 
pecial honors paid to her. The customary pro- 
cession with the usual religious and military 



138 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

ceremonies took place at Orleans, which cele- 
brated the four hundred eighty-third year of 
its deliverance. In addition, a historical pageant 
served to bring to the eyes of the onlookers the 
ancient city and the ancient weapons, trappings, 
munitions and armor of the far-off days of the 
siege. 

As exact a reproduction as possible was made 
of the old market-place with its inn, grocer, con- 
fectioner, miller, chest-maker, potter, and other 
representatives of the industries that made life 
comfortable in the olden time. 

The pageant showed the departure of Jeanne 
for the attack upon the Tourelles and her re- 
turn in the evening of the same day. Nothing 
that could make the procession realistic was 
omitted. Torches lighted the way, a fanfare 
of trumpets announced the approach of the vic- 
torious host, heralds wore the arms of the Duchy 
of Orleans, men-at-arms, foot soldiers, artillery- 
men, soldiers from the near-by towns of Blois, 
Chateaudun, Gien, Montargis made realistic the 
picture of an army of the middle ages. Cannon, 
including what we should call a trench mortar, 
with its supply of ammunition, showed what the 
ancient weapons were like. 

Surrounded by her household, her almoner, 
her servants, her musicians, and her generals, 
Dunois among them, rode Jeanne on a white 



THE FESTIVAL OF MAY 8 139 

horse. Like the real Jeanne, she was serious 
though jubilant. For Jeanne accepted the ap- 
plause of the people not for herself, but in 
thankfulness to God, the Deliverer. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

"HOLD NO LONGER THESE MANY AND LONG 
COUNCILS" 

Jeanne was endowed with a strong constitu- 
tion or she could not so easily have withstood the 
olive oil and lard treatment for her wound. But 
with an aching body, after two hard days of 
fighting at the Augustins and the Tourelles, and 
with an injured foot and a pierced shoulder, she 
deserved a holiday. Then the deliverance of 
Orleans was the accomplishment of the first of 
the duties entrusted to her by her Voices, and 
she must have felt it right that she should per- 
sonally tell the Dauphin about it. She also 
wanted to urge on him his share in the second 
part of her mission, the securing of his annoint- 
ing and coronation at Rheims. 

So the Maid and her train set forth for the 
city of Tours, some sixty miles from Orleans, 
and known to Americans during the Great War 
as one of the principal depots for the American 
army. There she expected to report to the Dau- 
phin, who had waited snugly at Chinon to hear 

140 



"HOLD NO LONGER COUNCILS" 141 

the news from the besieged city. Reports had 
come in to him when the fort of Saint Loup was 
taken, when the fort of the Augustins, and, 
lastly, when the Tourelles fell to the soldiers 
led by the peasant girl. He sent out messengers 
bearing bulletins to the near-by cities faithful 
to him and to the Armagnacs, and in them he 
mentioned Jeanne's presence in these battles. He 
may have felt that he was justified in saying, 
"I told you so," to the captains who had lis- 
tened unbelievingly to Jeanne's story and who 
raised their eyebrows when Charles accepted her 
as an officer-without-commission in his army. 

He had not reached Tours when Jeanne ar- 
rived, so she rode out along the Chinon road to 
meet him. As the approaching bands came to- 
gether, Jeanne, bearing her victorious standard, 
took off her cap, as a page might do, and bowed 
as low as her saddle permitted. 

Charles graciously bade her sit erect. He 
seemed glad to see her, and if he had a particle 
of gratitude in his nature he must have been 
glad, for she had done what none of his generals 
had done. She had saved one of his chief cities 
for him, and by saving it she had made a begin- 
ning of rescuing his whole kingdom from his 
enemies. 

A day or two after Jeanne left Orleans, Du- 
nois and some of the generals who had been 



142 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

engaged in repulsing the English set about fol- 
lowing up their victory. The town of Jargeau, 
on the Loire about a dozen miles to the east of 
Orleans, was held by the foe and was one of the 
places in which part of the retreating army had 
taken refuge. Common sense dictated that the 
enemy should be dislodged from this strong- 
hold while the morale of his army was im- 
paired by the defeat at Orleans. But common 
sense in Charles's army was limited in quantity, 
so, although it was evident to the naked eye that 
the river was high, and although every one 
knew that in consequence the Jargeau moat, 
filled from the river, would be brimming, no 
provision was made for crossing the moat either 
by bridges or pontoons or skiffs. As a result the 
attack upon the town consisted merely of a few 
hours' exchange of shots, by one of which the 
English commander was killed, and then of a 
retreat by the French. As an aid to Charles it 
all amounted to nothing, except as it may have 
made the leaders appreciate that without the 
Maid they were as far as ever from being able 
to accomplish anything. 

To-day, when a long-range gun can throw a 
shot farther than the distance from Orleans to 
Tours, it seems strange enough that the English 
army, dispersed throughout the immediate 
neighborhood of Orleans, was so safe. Meung 



*^HOLD NO LONGER COUNCILS" 143 

and Beaugency and Janville, all within easy 
riding distance of the lately besieged town, 
served as refuges, and once inside their walls 
the invaders were almost as free from assault as 
if they were across the Channel. There were 
no scout planes to spy them out, no wireless to 
betray their secrets. Talbot, marching in the 
direction of Paris, was as completely lost to the 
foe who had just allowed him to depart in peace 
as were the shipwrecked drivers of the Sopwith 
airplane when they were rescued from the sea 
by a tramp steamer unfurnished with radio. In 
1919 that was extraordinary; in 1429, an event 
disconcerting, but not to be wondered at. 

The English expected, however, that their 
various army sections would be routed out of 
these towns and that after their discomfiture the 
French would march on to Paris. When Bed- 
ford, the Regent, heard in Paris of the English 
retreat from Orleans, he withdrew into the 
stronghold of Vincennes, near the city, while 
the citizens, Burgundian and English, set about 
preparations to receive the foe with a warm 
greeting. 

But they disturbed themselves unnecessarily. 
As we look back it seems as if there could have 
been no question but that the clearing out of the 
enemy around Orleans would have been the im- 
mediate thing to do. Following upon that, the 



144 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

coronation of Charles would have assured his 
hold upon a large part of the population waver- 
ing in its loyalty, and then he could have 
marched upon Paris with a largely increased 
force and with the prestige of success. 

And all this quickly. 

But Charles was not the man to move quickly. 
He had dawdled so many years, his decisions had 
been blown hither and thither by so many winds, 
he had yielded so long to the suggestions of 
pleasure made by the men who managed him 
that it had become difficult for him to concen- 
trate his mind. To focus his energy or his de- 
termination was almost an impossibility. At 
the moment La Tremoille's influence was in the 
ascendant and La Tremoille was not dissatisfied 
with things as they were. Making war costs 
money and the fat favorite preferred to see the 
Dauphin's coins drop into his own yawning 
pockets rather than into the treasury of Orleans 
which had come so near to being emptied of its 
last sou that the housewives were contributing 
their extra silverware to the melting-pot. 

Charles delayed and talked and listened to 
the arguments of his councilors, all of whom 
put objections in the way of everything that the 
Maid proposed. Though, after all, her pro- 
posals were simple. Over and over, in the pres- 
ence of the Duke d'Alengon she "told the king 



"HOLD NO LONGER COUNCILS" 145 

she would last but one year and no more; and 
that he should consider how best to employ this 
year. She had," she repeated again and again, 
^^f our duties to accomplish : to beat the English ; 
to have the King crowned and consecrated at 
Rheims ; to deliver the Duke of Orleans from the 
hands of the English; and to raise the siege of 
Orleans." D'Aulon says that she prophesied 
these four, but considered herself bound to bring 
about only the first two. 

That she had done one of these duties and 
done it in spite of all odds should have made 
the Dauphin lend a willing ear to her entreaties. 
That she should make use of her leadership 
while its triumph was fresh in the minds of men 
both of her own army and of those she had 
beaten seems hardly to need urging. 

Yet Charles delayed and talked and listened 
to the objections of his councilors. One day 
when he was at the Castle of Loches, which is 
not far from Tours and Chinon, Jeanne went 
with Dunois to make one more appeal to him. 
He was in a small room with several of his ad- 
visers. "Before entering," says Dunoi's, "she 
knocked at the door; as soon as she had entered 
she knelt before the King, and, embracing his 
knees, said these words: 'Noble Dauphin! 
Hold no longer these many and long councils, 



146 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 



but come quickly to Rheims to take the crown 
for which you are worthy!' " 

It is beyond guessing why Charles so long 
resisted what one would suppose would be his 
fondest desire. Its effect upon the English 
would be telling, also, for they were planning 
to have their boy king, Henry VI of England, 
brought over to be crowned king of France. 
But the Maid was forced to plead his own cause 
to the Dauphin over and over. And she never 
changed her plea, never hesitated, no matter how 
often she met with discouragement, or how often 
the captains recommended that there should be 
a campaign against Normandy rather than a 
house-cleaning in the immediate neighborhood. 

The Duke d'Alengon, however, believed in 
the Maid, and he and a few of the other leaders 
began to collect what men they could get to- 
gether. Those who had fought under her at 
Orleans needed no urging. Messengers from 
Orleans, telling her of the whereabouts of the 
English, reached her at Selles, where she was 
laying her plans. There, too, came the brothers 
Guy and Andre de Laval, Bretons, to join the 
Dauphin's troops. Guy, writing home, pictures 
Jeanne full of spirit now that there was an op- 
portunity for action. He says : 

"On Monday (June 6 ) I left the King to go 
to Selles-en-Berry, four leagues from Saint 



"HOLD NO LONGER COUNCILS" 147 

Aignan. The King had summoned the Maid to 
come before him from Selles where she then 
was, and many said this was much in my favor, 
so that I might see her. The said Maid treated 
my brother and me with great kindness: she was 
armed at all points save the head and bore lance 
in hand. After we had arrived at Selles I went 
to her lodging to see her, and she called for 
wine for me and said she would soon have me 
drink it in Paris. She seemed to me a thing di- 
vine in all she did and all I saw and heard. 

^^On Monday evening she left Selles to go to 
Romorantin. I saw her mounting her horse, 
armed all in white save the head, a little axe in 
her hand. And then turning to the door of the 
church, which was quite near, she said in a gen- 
tle woman's voice: 'You priests and clergy, make 
processions and prayers to God.' Then she 
turned again on her way, saying: 'Draw on, draw 
on!' her standard flying, borne by a gracious 
page, and her little axe in her hand. One of her 
brothers, who arrived eight days since, left also 
with her, armed all in white." 

The same letter tells also of Jeanne's experi- 
ence with her charger, "a fine black war horse." 
When he was brought for her to mount he was 
so highstrung and nervous that she could not 
mount him. 

''Take him to the cross," she said, indicating 



148 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

an iron cross before the door of the church. 
When he was led to the cross he stood "as though 
he were tied" while she mounted him. 

It was on June 9, a month and a day after 
the raising of the siege of Orleans, that Jeanne 
reentered the city, intending to use it as a base 
for her expeditions to clear the surrounding 
towns of their undesired foreign guests. She 
was received with delight by the people, for the 
gratitude of Orleans never has failed through 
the centuries. 

One would suppose that the previous failure 
to reduce the town of Jargeau because of insuf- 
ficient preparation by the French would have 
set the leaders on their mettle. They were still 
arguing, however, as to ways and means, and 
some of the nobles withdrew because they were 
so strongly of the opinion that the strategic move 
was to go to meet that perpetual convoyer of 
supplies, Fastolf, who was reported to be just 
leaving Paris to relieve the folk of Jargeau. 

If they thought that their departure would 
put an end to Jeanne's endeavors they had not 
realized the Maid's determination. This time 
there was to be no overthrowing of plans simply 
because the river was high. 



CHAPTER XV 

"TO THE ASSAULT" OF JARGEAU 

The Duke d'Alengon led the army against 
Jargeau, a leadership satisfying to Jeanne for he 
was always her good friend. His own words 
tell the story of the siege. 

"We succeeded in assembling as many as six 
hundred lances," he says, meaning about fifteen 
hundred men, for each lance bearer had an es- 
cort. 

"That night we slept in a wood." 

This was no new experience to Jeanne by this 
time for ever since her departure from Dom- 
remy she had had to endure such hazards. 

"On the following morning we were joined 
by another division. When we were all joined 
together we found ourselves to number about 
twelve hundred lances. There was then conten- 
tion among the captains." 

Always contention! It must have seemed to 
Jeanne as if the powers of darkness were strug- 
gling against her and her Dauphin since she 
herself saw her way so clearly. 

149 



I50 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

"Some were of the opinion that the attack 
should be made, and others opposed it, seeing 
the great strength of the English and their large 
numbers." 

Such objections seem to show that the English 
reputation lingered in the French mind even af- 
ter the outcome of the siege of Orleans had 
proved that they were not so formidable a foe 
as had been supposed. 

"Jeanne, seeing us thus divided, said: *No, 
do not fear their numbers; do not hesitate to 
make the attack; God will conduct your enter- 
prise; if I were not sure that it is God Who 
guides us I would rather take care of the sheep 
than expose myself to such great perils!'" 

The Maid's perfect confidence inspired con- 
fidence and "on these words we marched to 
Jargeau, counting on gaining the suburbs that 
day and passing the night there." 

The people of Orleans had done their part 
in supplying artillery for the attack. Probably 
the slowness of the Duke's and Jeanne's army 
in making the march of only a dozen miles is 
accounted for by the fact that they wanted to 
assemble their guns. They were to fight with 
God's help, but they knew that God helps those 
who help themselves. Heavy guns that had 
done duty against the English when Orleans 
was attacked were now loaded on to boats and 



"TO THE ASSAULT" OF JARGEAU 151 

sent up the river. There were five boatloads 
of them. There was also an immense cannon 
which required twelve pairs of horses to draw it, 
and there was all the paraphernalia of mediaeval 
attack, ropes with hooks and ladders, and so on. 

Possibly the English did not know about all 
these preparations, or perhaps they wanted to 
get in the first blow. At any rate the Duke 
says: "But on the news of our approach the 
English came to meet us and at first drove us 
back." 

This was what usually happened. The Eng- 
lish expected to do it; the French expected to 
have it done. Only the Maid seems to have felt 
that the regular routine was unnecessary. 

"Seeing this, Jeanne seized her standard and 
began the attack, telling the soldiers to have 
good courage. We succeeded so well that we 
were able that night to camp in the suburbs. I 
think truly it was God Who was leading us, for 
in the night that followed we kept no guard" — 
which would seem to show that the Armagnac 
supply of common sense had not been greatly 
increased ; "so that had the English made a sally 
we must have been in great danger." On that 
evening Jeanne summoned the English to sur- 
render, as she had done at Orleans, and with the 
same result. 

"The next morning," goes on d'Alengon, "we 



1152 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

prepared artillery and had the machines and 
bombards placed in position. Then we consult- 
ed for some time as to what should be done 
against the English in Jargeau in order to take 
the town. While we were deliberating we were 
told that La Hire" — the profane leader whom 
Jeanne induced to swear only by his cane — ^'was 
in conference with the English Lord Suffolk." 

This looked so much like treason that d'Alen- 
gon and the other leaders were naturally angry, 
especially as the big gun had made a hole in the 
wall which would be a suitable place for attack. 

"I and the other captains were much provoked 
at this, and sent for La Hire, who came at once." 
His explanation was that Suffolk had offered to 
surrender if Fastolf or some other English 
leader did not come to his rescue within a fort- 
night. As Fastolf was known to be on the road, 
this was a proposition to be considered seriously. 
Jeanne, who shunned the shedding of blood, and 
who only wanted to clear away the foe from the 
Dauphin's towns, would have been willing to 
let him go, if they had departed at once, and 
had left their armor behind — a prudent move. 
But the captains decided otherwise. 

"The attack being resolved upon, the Heralds- 
at-Arms began to sound the ^Assault' " 

" forward, gentle Duke, to the assault!' cried 
Jeanne to me. And when I told her it was pre- 



y 



"TO THE ASSAULT'^ OF JARGEAU 153 

mature to attack so quickly: 'Have no fear/ 
she said to me, 'it is the right time when it pleases 
God; we must work when it is His Will: Act, 
and God will act!' 'Ah, gentle Duke,' she said 
to me later, 'art thou afraid? Dost thou not 
know that I promised thy wife to bring thee 
back safe and sound?' 

"And indeed, when I left my wife to come 
with Jeanne to the headquarters of the army, 
my wife had told me that she feared much for 
me, that I had but just left prison" — ^where he 
had been for five years in the custody of the 
English — "and much had been spent on my ran- 
som, and she would gladly have asked that I 
might remain with her. To this Jeanne had re- 
plied: 'Lady, have no fear; I will give him 
back to you whole, or even in better case than 
he is now!' " 

It was during the attack on Jargeau that 
Jeanne saved the Duke's life. As he was stand- 
ing beside her watching the rise and fall of the 
assault, she said to him, "Go back from this place 
or that engine" — indicating one of the English 
cannon — "will kill you." 

The Duke stepped aside. He had seen enough 
of Jeanne's powers of divination to have respect 
for any words of prophecy that she might let 
fall. His life was assuredly saved, for he adds: 
"And shortly after that very engine did indeed 



154 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

kill the Sieur de Lude in that very place from 
which she told me to go away." But whether 
it was a glimpse of the future that came to 
Jeanne or whether her natural powers of ob- 
servation had noticed that the gunner was com- 
ing nearer and nearer to the range, who shall 
say? And, after all, keen observation is a gift 
from God. 

Afterwards Jeanne led the attack and d'Alen- 
gon admits that he followed her. Suffolk was 
beginning to be concerned for his forces at last, 
for he "made proclamation" that he wished to 
hold parley with the French, but the French 
were becoming correspondingly encouraged, and 
they paid no attention to his appeal. It was well 
that the French were not entirely dependent on 
the Maid for their moral support, for just at 
that moment she met with one of the accidents 
of war. 

*^Jeanne was on a ladder," says d'Alengon, 
"her standard in her hand, when her standard 
was struck and she herself was hit on the head 
by a stone which was partly spent and which 
struck her visorless headpiece. She was thrown 
to the ground; but, raising herself, she cried: 
Triends ! friends ! come on ! come on ! Our Lord 
hath doomed the English! They are ours! Keep 
a good heart!' " 

As if in immediate answer to the plucky girl's 



^TO THE ASSAULT" OF JARGEAU 155 

cry the town was carried at that very moment, 
and the English retired to the bridges where the 
French pursued them and killed many. Suffolk 
himself and one of his brothers were taken pris- 
oners. At nightfall the borrowed artillery and 
the captives were taken back to Orleans by the 
river route, so that the men-at-arms who were 
quarreling over their booty might not destroy 
everything that had been seized. 

As was customary, the Maid celebrated by 
taking part in a procession and by listening to a 
sermon of rejoicing. The townsfolk gave casks 
of wine to several of the leaders, including 
Jeanne. The captive Duke of Orleans, through 
his representatives in the city, gave her a green 
cloak and a robe of crimson, the Orleans' colors, 
adorned with nettles in two shades of green. 
When she laid off her war-like array of steel and 
leather and donned this handsome garb she may 
well have felt like quoting Charles of Orleans' 
poem on 

SPRING 

The Time hath laid his mantle by 

Of wind and rain and icy chill, 
And dons a rich embroidery 

Of sunlight poured on lake and hill. 
No beast or bird in earth or sky 



156 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill, 
For Time hath laid his mantle by 
Of wind and rain and icy chill. 

River and fountain, brook and rill, 

Bespangled o'er with livery gay 
Of silver droplets wind their way. 
All in their new apparel vie, 

For time hath laid his mantle by. 



CHAPTER XVI 
"have all of you good spurs?" 

By dividing their forces when they retreated 
from Orleans, the English may have thought that 
they would divide the attention of the French 
and impair their united strength. To balance 
the garrison put into Jargeau, the enemy estab- 
lished themselves in Meung, about the same dis- 
tance to the west of Orleans, and in Beaugency. 

If Jeanne was the divinely appointed instru- 
ment to set the Dauphin's affairs in order, one 
reason surely was because she was rich in what 
he lacked, promptness and decision. Here was 
an instance. She allowed herself and her army 
only a two days' rest after the Jargeau affair 
before proposing to attack Meung. Hit hard 
and hit often was her belief as it has been of 
most of the best generals of history. 

D'Alengon had not shaken off his fear of the 
enemy. He says that he spent the night before 
Meung with a few soldiers within a church, 
''and was in great peril." But the English of- 
fered but small resistance. Orleans and Jar- 

157 



1^8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

geau had taught them that the Maid's standard 
was not a shepherd's crook guiding only ^'silly 
sheep." The French took the bridge by a sud- 
den assault. Then, leaving a garrison to see that 
the foe remained quietly within the walls, 
marched on to the more important Beaugency 
which offered a harder task. 

There were English within the town; there 
were English encamped outside of the town; 
Meung might pluck up courage enough to send 
reinforcements. It was a time when reinforce- 
ments for the French would not come at all 
amiss. 

And they appeared. But with their appear- 
ance Jeanne found herself plunged into politics 
of a sort that had not before come within her 
experience. The Constable of France was the 
Count de Richemont, uncle of Jeanne's ^^beau 
due," d'Alengon, who was in charge of the 
French forces before Beaugency. Just when his 
aid was most needed the Constable appeared 
with a goodly army. Jeanne was delighted, but 
d'Alengon was extremely embarrassed, because 
the Constable was on bad terms with the Dau- 
phin's favorite, la Tremoille. Charles had is- 
sued orders that no assistance must be accepted 
from him, and the duke naturally felt under ob- 
ligation to obey his lord. 

But this was no time to refuse such opportune 



*^HAVE ALL GOOD SPURS?" 159 

help. The English in the town had been allowed 
to leave under a safe-conduct. News now came 
that Talbot was approaching with an army so 
large that it must mean that these men had 
joined him and that Fastolf, the convoyer, had 
met him. The French called ''To arms!" and 
Jeanne told the leaders of her army that all must 
help one another, regardless of feuds. 

''Ah, fair Constable," said Jeanne to de Riche- 
mont, "you have not come by my will, but now 
you are here you are welcome." 

Many of the French still stood in such fear of 
the English that they wanted to await the arrival 
of the cavalry before fighting. 

"In God's name!" cried Jeanne, who could 
not have escaped the thought that her whole life 
was spent in meeting objections, "we must fight 
them at once: even if they were hanging from 
the clouds we should have them because God 
has sent us to chastise them." 

She promised her followers the greatest vic- 
tory they ever had had. 

"My Counsel has told me they are all ours." 

The French were on a hillock in a wooded 
plain and commanded the situation. The Eng- 
lish thought it wise to withdraw to Meung 
where they tried to take back the bridge from 
the French, their plan being to gather up what 
help they could from within the town and then 



i6o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

march on to the assistance of Beaugency. But 
before they could do it they got news of the fall 
of Beaugency and they then began to retreat 
toward Paris, losing themselves in the forests as 
they did so. 

The Constable and d'Alengon asked Jeanne 
what was next to be done. 

She answered, jokingly, "Have all of you good 
spurs?" 

"What do you mean? Are we, then, to turn 
our backs?" 

"Nay, it is the English who will not defend 
themselves and will be beaten; and you must 
have good spurs to pursue them." 

But before the pursuers came up with the 
English, there was a long ride during which it 
seemed that once more the foe had completely 
disappeared. La Hire led the way, knowing 
well that the enemy would be very likely to set 
an ambush for the capture of the Maid whose 
possession would mean so much to them. Jeanne 
was not pleased with the arrangement. Louis, 
her page, says that she was "much vexed for she 
liked much to have the command of the van- 
guard." 

La Hire's fear was well grounded. English 
scouts skirmishing in the rear saw the following 
French and told Talbot and Fastolf about them. 
The English planned to station bowmen behind 



"HAVE ALL GOOD SPURS?" i6i 

the hedges that lined both sides of the lane lead- 
ing into the village of Patay, and thus to slaugh- 
ter a great number of the French after they had 
ridden into the trap. 

It was a clever trick and would have worked 
out well if it had not happened that the French, 
riding briskly along the road, all unconscious 
of the nearness of their foe, startled a stag. The 
terrified creature dashed straight into the throng 
of English, and they, forgetting that the enemy 
was so near, gave a hunting cry. Of course this 
unexpected shout betrayed their whereabouts to 
the French who instantly spurred their horses 
along the lane, cutting and slaying men who had 
planned so cleverly to cut and slay them. 

Jeanne hated the sight of such slaughter. 
Louis reports that "seeing a Frenchman, who 
was charged with the convoy of certain English 
prisoners, strike one of them on the head in such 
manner that he was left for dead on the ground, 
she got down from her horse, had him confess, 
supporting his head herself and comforting him 
to the best of her power." 

In the town of Patay Talbot was brought be- 
fore d'Alengon and the Constable in the presence 
of Jeanne. D'Alengon said to Talbot that in the 
morning he had never expected what had hap- 
pened. "It is the fortune of war," the prisoner 
replied, probably in the same phrase — "C'est la 



i62 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

guerre" — which has explained and excused thou- 
sands of happenings that have disturbed the cur- 
rents of life of simple and gentle French folk 
during the Great War. 

One of the French knights relates that Jeanne 
had predicted to the French that few or none 
of them would be slain or suffer loss. 

"Which also befell," he says in confirmation, 
"for of all our men there perished but one gen- 
tleman of my company." 

Back to Orleans rode the gallant crew rejoic- 
ing in their victory, and gaily were they wel- 
comed by the people of Orleans who looked 
upon their town as the Maid's headquarters. 
After so thorough a clearing out of the enemy, 
Jeanne may be excused for supposing that she 
had shown Charles sufficient proof that her way 
was the one that would bring success. He was 
lavish with compliments for her when they met 
a few days later, but once more began the eternal 
delays and the arguments about going into Nor- 
mandy, about going anywhere except where 
Jeanne Was eager to lead — to Rheims for the 
coronation. She gave as her reason for an im- 
mediate journey that "if once the King were 
consecrated and crowned the power of his ad- 
versaries would decline, and that in the end they 
would be past the power of doing any injury 
either to him or to his kingdom." 



"HAVE ALL GOOD SPURS?" 163 

As showing her spirit in contrast to that of 
the people who advised the Dauphin — ^when 
they suggested that on the road to Rheims lay 
strong towns in Burgundian or English hands 
and that it would necessitate fighting to obtain 
a thoroughfare, she answered that that was but 
one more argument in favor of going. Burgun- 
dian and English towns would be a welcome ad- 
dition to Charles's possessions. What was a 
fight more or less? On to Rheims! 

But the Dauphin delayed on a visit to La 
Tremoille and then in the town of Gien Jeanne 
grew so impatient that she started for Rheims 
in advance of him. It was a long chance to take 
with a man so lacking in decision as the King. 

But she took it — and he followed her. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ON TO RHEIMSl 

The Maid's confidence in the success of 
Charles's armies on the road to Rheims was not 
shared by his advisers. They reflected timidly 
that these places were Burgundian and English 
strongholds. If, by chance, they fell before the* 
King's attack, they must be held by strong gar- 
risons, and leaving behind so many men would 
greatly weaken the royal forces. 

Jeanne was not at all disturbed by such mis- 
givings. She was as confident now that the way 
would be made clear for her as she had been of 
victory at the siege of Orleans. This was the 
second part of the mission for which she had 
been born. It could not fail. 

Like a prudent leader, she did not omit to 
make preparations. Knights and gentlemen from 
provinces formerly attached to the crown began 
to come in to join the army, now that it was 
gaining some renown by its successes along the 
Loire.^ Many of them were poorly mounted, 
some of them were poorly shod, but every fight- 
ing man was welcomed to the army by the Maid. 

164 



ON TO RHEIMS! 165 

To the professional soldiers Jeanne left the 
matter of supplying food and ordnance, and 
poorly enough they did their work. It almost 
seems as if they were beckoning to Defeat. 
Jeanne was to learn their lack of foresight with- 
in a few days and to make up for it as far as 
she was able by her woman's wit and her instinc- 
tive knowledge of the minds of men. 

Before the Maid left Gien she sent a letter 
to the people of Tournai and possibly to some 
other towns urging them to be faithful to the 
King and inviting them to the coronation at 
Rheims. The letter runs : 

t JHESUS t MARIA 

"Fair Frenchmen and loyal of the town of Tournai, 
from this place the Maid makes known unto you this news : 
That in eight days or so, she has driven the English from 
all the strongholds they held along the river Loire. Know 
that the Earl of Suifort, his brother, LapouUe, the Sire of 
Tallebord, the Sire of Scallez and my lords Jean Falscof * 
and many knights and captains have been captured and the 
brother of the Earl of Suffort and Glasdas slain. I beg you 
to continue good and faithful Frenchmen; and I pray and 
entreat you to make yourselves ready to come to the anoint- 
ing of the fair King Charles at Rains, where we shall soon 
be, and come to meet us when you hear that we are ap- 
proaching. To God I commend you. God keep you and 

* Jeanne shared the belief of many of the French that Fastolf 
had been taken prisoner at Patay. 



i66 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

give you His grace that you may properly maintain the 
worthy cause of the kingdom of France. Written at Gien 
the XXV day of June." 

Jeanne also sent an invitation to Charles's 
deadly enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, inviting 
him to the coronation. It was an ironic polite- 
ness, as Charles's coronation must mean to Bur- 
gundy and its ally, England, the certain loss of 
political power and the probable loss of terri- 
tory. 

A person with less intuition than Jeanne, who 
had had her experiences with the Dauphin's de- 
lays might not have ventured to start before he 
did on the ride to Rheims. The Maid knew that 
all was to end according to her desire. She saw 
that the King trusted her and that for once he 
was imposing his will on the men who sur- 
rounded him who were working, whether they 
realized it or not, in behalf of the Burgundians. 

So the start was made in rejoicing, and the 
long train of knights and men-at-arms, of lances 
and bowmen and light artillery swept slowly 
along the very road that Jeanne had travelled in 
the opposite direction about four months before 
in the company of Jean de Metz and Bertrand 
de Poulengy. 

They stopped before the town of Auxerre, one 
of the few places where the adventurous little 



ON TO RHEIMS! 167 

band had been able to hear mass without fear of 
being molested, although the city was Burgun- 
dian. Now they were not to enter. 

The billeting of soldiers upon towns and cities 
was a scourge to be avoided by every art of diplo- 
macy. The large towns of the district of Cham- 
pagne, such as Auxerre, Troyes, Chalons, 
Rheims, had made an agreement to help each 
other in such emergencies. Feeding and hous- 
ing the men were not the features to be feared. 
What they wanted to avoid were the street 
brawls and looting that were likely to happen 
when a body of men-at-arms owing no respon- 
sibility to the citizens and having no especial 
interest in the places were idling away their time 
there. Then they knew that if they received 
Charles they would be punished by the Duke of 
Burgundy. For the time being they seemed to 
be placed between two fires, each burning with 
uncomfortable briskness. 

So representatives from the city fathers came 
out from Auxerre to meet the Dauphin's army 
and begged them to pass on without attacking 
the city. Jeanne, understanding that they were 
not friends of her King, was for making at least 
an exhibition of force that she felt would bring 
about a surrender. But La Tremoille decided 
against it, influenced, the old chroniclers say, by 
a bribe of two thousand crowns. Not that he 



i68 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

admitted this addition to the contents of his 
pocketbook. He said that the Dauphin's cap- 
tains had agreed to accept the same terms as 
those that should be made by Troyes and Cha- 
lons and Rheims. 

An army travels on its stomach, and its morale 
is largely dependent on how it is fed. Because 
the King's commissary department was not 
working very well, the soldiers did not care 
whether they stayed and fought or marched on. 
When they were provided with food by the peo- 
ple of Auxerre they were entirely willing to 
leave the town in peace and to take their fight- 
ing ardor somewhere else. 

^'Somewhere else" meant Troyes, which was 
the next large city on their way. What to do 
about Troyes was a more serious question than 
what to do about Auxerre. It was large, fully 
manned, well armed, and it had its wits about 
it. It had seen Charles's army pass by a smaller 
town, Auxerre, and it knew that his force was 
not furnished with engines of war. Indeed, it 
looked as if La Tremoille had started out with 
the idea in mind of making this expedition a 
failure. 

At any rate the folk of Troyes saw no reason 
to turn Armagnac and they shut their gates and 
set their cannon in order. 

The King was in his customary state of inde- 




TROYES — CHURCH OF ST. JEAN 



ON TO RHEIMS! 169 

cision, and stopped at Saint Phal, near Troyes, 
to think matters over. Should they lay siege 
to this unpromising looking town or should they 
pass it by as they had Auxerre? The Council 
was divided. To besiege so well-fortified a 
place without suitable military equipment 
seemed foolish; to march past leaving a strong 
hostile city between the royal army and its base 
was worse than foolish. Retreat seemed the only 
resort. 

But retreat meant that Charles would not be 
crowned and there were those in the Council 
who believed Jeanne when she declared that she 
was divinely sent to conduct the Dauphin to 
Rheims. Had not the relief of Orleans been the 
"sign" that proved her mission? At least she 
ought to be consulted as to the next move. 

So the Maid was summoned and the argu- 
ments were laid before her. There was no hesi- 
tation about her reply. 

"Noble Dauphin," she made answer prompt- 
ly, "order your people to come and besiege the 
town of Troyes, and lose no more time in such 
long councils ! In God's name, before three days 
are gone I will bring you into this town by 
favor or by force." 

Such hearty determination carried instant 
conviction to the doubters. To those who were 
secretly pro-Burgundian her next words must 



I70 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

have struck home, though they may have been 
said in a spirit of amusement. 

^'Greatly," she added, "greatly will the false 
Burgundy be astonished!" Undoubtedly he was 
and the false pro-Bungundians, too. 

It was while the Maid was at Saint Phal that 
the people of Troyes, who were swearing great 
oaths and making promises to the people of 
Rheims about their determination to resist, but 
who were evidently quaking in their hearts be- 
cause of Jeanne's victories, sent a friar, Brother 
Richard, to see what manner of being Jeanne 
was. Brother Richard had had a tremendous 
success as a popular preacher in Paris and his 
words were considered words of wisdom. There- 
fore the folk of Troyes were ready to accept his 
verdict as to whether Jeanne came from God or 
the Devil. 

The scene must have reminded Jeanne of the 
time when Robert de Baudricourt brought her 
confessor to see her at Vaucouleurs. Brother 
Richard threw holy water upon her and made 
the sign of the cross. Jeanne laughed and urged 
him to approach. 

"Be brave and come on," she said. "I will not 
fly away!" 

She entrusted to the friar a letter for the citi- 
zens, in which she diplomatically mentioned that 
no matter who opposed, the king was on his way 



ON TO RHEIMS! 171 

to Paris "with the aid of King Jhesus." This 
suggestion that Charles was aiming at the great- 
est city in the land heightened the timidity of the 
burghers, though they declared that the letter 
had no rhyme nor reason, and burned it. But 
when their messenger, Brother Richard, ac- 
knowledged his belief in the Maid's sanctity 
their determination was shaken. 

Having promised Charles that he should 
have the city, Jeanne took over the generalship. 
"Putting herself at the head of the army," says 
Dunois, "she had the tents placed right against 
the trenches of the town, and executed many 
marvelous maneuvers which had not been 
thought of by two or three accomplished gen- 
erals working together. And so well did she 
work during the night that, the next day, the 
Bishop and citizens came all trembling and 
quaking to place their submission in the King's 
hands. Afterwards, it was known that at the 
moment when she had told the King's Council 
not to pass by the town, the inhabitants had sud- 
denly lost heart, and had occupied themselves 
only in seeking refuge in the churches." 

After Charles made a treaty with Troyes he 
entered the town in great array. The Duke 
d'Alengon rode on one side and Jeanne, carrying 
her banner, on the other. They passed between 
double rows of foot soldiers. The King had 



172 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

promised that he would be a good lord to the 
people if they would yield to him, and he began 
to keep his promise by forbidding looting. 

As was her custom, Jeanne gave thanks to 
God in the cathedral, perhaps even casting a 
glance from her unaccustomed peasant eyes at 
the five broad aisles and at the gleaming walls 
surmounted by the rich splendor of the windows. 

In the presence of Charles and Jeanne, the 
great church was dedicated to Saint Peter and 
Saint Paul. It would not be strange of the Dau- 
phin's mind strayed from the service, for he 
must have remembered bitterly that it was in 
this church that his sister Catharine was be- 
trothed to England's King Henry V, the deadly 
enemy of France; and that in Troyes his own 
father and mother had signed the treaty that dis- 
inherited him. 

On the following day the entire army marched 
through the town, in at one gate and out at an- 
other, and on into the country toward the city of 
Chalons. At a distance of about a dozen miles 
the royal army encamped while a herald went 
forward and demanded for the King the alle- 
giance of the ancient town. 

Chalons has appeared many times at crises in 
the history of France. The latest was toward 
the beginning of the Great War. The oldest 
and perhaps the most important if not most in- 






II 
li 








m'-.. 




CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS 



ON TO RHEIMS! 173 

teresting story about it is that told of the battle 
that took place there when Attila the Hun was 
on the way to attack Paris. Saint Genevieve 
gathered together the women of Paris and they 
fasted and prayed while the foe came nearer and 
nearer. The unbelieving jeered, but Saint Ger- 
main of Auxerre, who happened to be there, re- 
proved them for their lack of faith, and the 
miracle came to pass — ^'the tyrante approachyd 
not parys," as an old chronicle puts it. 

But what Paris escaped Chalons received. 
Turning aside from the road to the capital, At- 
tila set about devastating the country. Then the 
quarrels among the peoples of Gaul were for- 
gotten as they united against the common foe. 
Gauls and Romans, Burgundians and Visigoths 
and Franks made up an allied army that de- 
feated Attila near Chalons in a battle so fierce 
that the ghosts of the slain, it was said, continued 
the fight. A famous painting visualizes this tale. 

The Bishop of Chalons came forth and wel- 
comed Charles to the town. Within the walls 
Jeanne found some old friends from Domremy. 
One was the Burgundian whose head she would 
willingly have had cut off, yet to whom she 
wanted to confide the secret of her departure 
from the village. Now she welcomed him in 
a friendly spirit and talked frankly with him, 



174 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

telling him she feared nothing in her new enter- 
prise "except treason." 

To another of her Domremy neighbors she 
gave a red dress she had worn — perhaps the one 
in which she had gone to Vaucouleurs, perhaps 
one of later make. How the women of Dom- 
remy must have turned it over and over and 
examined every thread of it whea it was brought 
home to them! 

And with what an ecstasy of joy Jeanne her- 
self must have ridden forth from Chalons on the 
last stretch of the journey that was to end in the 
accomplishment of the second part of her mis- 
sion — the coronation of her king! 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE CORONATION 

No cathedral on the whole long list of those 
whose beauty enriches France has seen more su- 
perb ceremonials than has the cathedral of Notre 
Dame at Rheims. Not even Notre Dame at 
Paris can equal it, though the walls of the pres- 
ent building in the great capital have looked 
down upon St. Louis' presentation of the Crown 
of Thorns and upon his funeral; upon the tri- 
umphal entry on horseback of Philip the Fair 
after the battle of Mons-en-Puelle; upon the 
coronation of Napoleon and Josephine and the 
marriage of Napoleon III to the Empress Eu- 
genie. 

But Rheims was the scene of the coronations 
of the kings of France for almost six centuries 
and a half, every king vieing with his predeces- 
sor in making the traditional function more mag- 
nificently dignified, more superbly elegant. The 
lay peers of the realm wore gorgeous robes of 
state and the clerical peers were arrayed in new 
canonicals; nobles and their ladies alike pressed 
together in a mass of glowing color. 

175 



176 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

The building itself, rich in carving and in its 
wealth of 2000 statues, was hung with tapestries 
which were often left as gifts and the monarchs 
gave for the altar vessels of precious metals. 

The sacred oil in its dove-shaped reliquary 
was cared for with the utmost vigilance. It was 
kept in a church at some little distance from the 
cathedral and it was the especial duty of the 
abbot to watch over it. Whenever it left the 
church the case in which the phial was enclosed 
was fastened about the abbot's neck by a silver 
chain. 

Anointing with this oil, which was said never 
to have been replenished since first it was sent 
down from Heaven to Saint Remy, made the 
king the head of the Church in France, it made 
his person sacred, and it was believed to prolong 
life. 

During the French Revolution the sainte am- 
poulle in which the oil was kept was taken from 
its place of safety by a man named RhuU who 
was a member of the Convention. He broke the 
phial against the base of a statue of Louis XV. 
He said that it contained "a red liquor dried 
and stuck to the glass of the bottle." A priest 
scraped up a little of this dried liquor and saved 
it carefully. 

Since Rheims cathedral was the seat of this 
holy mystery, beloved for its traditional place in 



THE CORONATION 177 

the history of France and a thing of glorious 
beauty as well, is it strange that its bombardment 
during the Great War filled the entire allied 
world with indignation? One hundred and fifty- 
nine shells fell on the building, leaving it a ruin. 
An English poet * makes one of his characters 
address a German ofiicer: 

"If Rhelms cathedral you must batter down 
You batter no mere mass of masonry: 
You burn the body of an eternal soul. 
They who did build so high they feared not time; 
They feared not man, and now shall man erase 
This thought unchanging in the drift of change; 
This Prayer that ever-rising still abides ; 
This rally of the Soul in days of dross, 
With windows rose-flushed from heroic dawns; 
A Vision frozen, stationary Sigh 
Time-worn, yet wearying t ward Eternity. 



Here for seven hundred years looked down on us 
A nation's dearest Angels and old Knights; 
This shrine for ivy hath our antique hours; 
Here hath the mother brought her first-born child 
To lay him at God's feet ; bereaved women 
Have heard a whisper in the glooming nave. 
Oh, can you shell a people's memory? 
Put out a solemn taper of dark France, 
Man, man, do you not fear?" 



*Stephen Phillips in "Armageddon." 



178 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

The same poet makes answer to those who 
would restore the ancient church: 

"What Vengeance for thy ruin shall she hurl? 
O, be that vengeance that the ruin stand, 
Only those Choirs forever unrestored! 
Even unfallen!" 

Whether it stands, a monument to that ferocity 
that held holy no sacred thing, or whether the 
patient toil of the monks of long ago is replaced 
by the quicker rebuilding methods of modern 
times, the spirit of the cathedral will ever live, 
made immortal by its part in the daily living 
and the daily faith of thousands who have wor- 
shipped at its shrine of religion and of beauty. 

Since nobles and commons alike held such im- 
plicit belief in the healing and consecrating 
power of the sacred oil, it is not strange that 
Jeanne thought her Dauphin not really her king 
until he was anointed and that the English were 
eager to have their boy king receive the unction 
at the earliest possible moment. 

It is quite possible that the coronation of 
Charles VII was the least spectacular of all the 
coronations that took place at Rheims. On July 
1 6, which was Saturday, Charles waited for a 
few hours at a town not far out of Rheims while 
he sent in a messenger to announce his coming 
and to call upon the citizens to receive him well. 



THE CORONATION 179 

The people found themselves in a rather uncom- 
fortable position for they had been none too 
loyal to the Dauphin, but there he was with an 
army at his back, and the Duke of Burgundy 
with his allies of England was not there. So 
the burgesses discreetly opened their gates and 
their King rode in. 

It was the ancient custom for coronations to 
take place on Sundays. This gave but a few 
hours for the people to make preparations for 
the function, which usually required weeks of 
planning. There was the added urge to haste 
that the billeting of soldiers in the town for a 
week was not at all to be desired. Jeanne said 
that Charles ^'acted thus to hurry on his work, at 
the request of the people of the town of Rheims, 
to avoid too long a charge upon them of the 
soldiers." 

The good folk of the town toiled all through 
the night decorating the streets for their lord 
and furbishing up their old robes and dresses to 
grace this unexpected festival. In the cathedral 
there were hurried unrollings of stored tapestries 
and banners and much polishing of silver and 
of brass. 

When the hour came there was no array of 
gorgeously attired nobles or of their wives, rich- 
ly adorned in tight-fitting gowns of brilliant 
stuffs, with long veils gracefully floating from 



i8o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

high head-dresses. The cathedral was filled with 
soldiers in armor, with men-at-arms, keeping 
guard, with such few lords and ladies as hap- 
pened to be in the immediate vicinity in apparel 
that may have been handsome but was not new, 
with well-to-do burgesses and their wives. 

However lacking in gorgeousness the gather- 
ing was, it did not lack in numbers. When, at 
nine o'clock in the morning, the Abbot appeared, 
riding his palfrey and bearing the sacred phial 
suspended from his neck, there was a great 
throng about the door of the already filled ca- 
thedral. Before him were cross and candle 
bearers; over his head stretched a canopy car- 
ried by four chevaliers who were escorted by 
four monks and followed by a long procession 
of ecclesiastics. 

One of the king's nobles with a retinue went 
to meet the abbot. The cavalcade rode into the 
cathedral, dismounting only when they reached 
the end of the nave. Charles was attended by 
d'Alengon, La Tremoille, and others who had 
been his companions on the march, and by her 
who may well be called the Preserver of the 
Realm, the Maid. She wore a page's dress of 
white silk and red velvet above which rose her 
joyful face, shadowed by her battle-torn, blood- 
stained standard. When she was asked at her 
trial why her standard was taken into the cathe- 



THE CORONATION i8i 

dral rather than ^'those of other captains," she 
answered, ''It had shared the pain; it was only 
right it should share the honor." 

Close beside the King and at the left of the 
altar stood Jeanne while the Archbishop sum- 
moned in due form the six lay peers of the king- 
dom to come forward and take their places. Not 
one was present of those whose rank entitled 
them to take part in the coronation. Their places 
were taken by those generals of the Dauphin's 
who happened to be of sufficiently elevated rank. 
Of the six Church peers three were present — 
the Archbishop of Rheims, the Bishop of Cha- 
lons, which is not far away from Rheims, and 
the Bishop of Eaon. Three other bishops re- 
placed the absent ones. The English were in 
possession of the crown jewels which were kept 
at Saint Denis. Charlemagne's crown and sword 
and scepter were there, and Charles VII had 
to put up with a crown "of little value" which 
the priests found in the treasury of the cathedral 
at Rheims. When the Archbishop rested it upon 
the king's brow the twelve peers raised their 
hands toward it in token of support. In the ab- 
sence of the Constable of France, with whom 
Charles had not become reconciled in spite of 
all Jeanne's efforts, the sword was offered to the 
king by the Sire d'Albret. To show his willing- 
ness to use it for the protection of the Church, 



i82 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Charles laid it on the altar whence it was re- 
turned to him. Given the accolade and girt with 
the sword at last he was a knight. Anointed 
with the sacred oil at last he was the consecrated 
King of France. A bishop had held the royal 
mantle and had asked the people if they ac- 
cepted him for their lord, and they had cried 
"Noel." Then Jeanne handed her standard to 
Louis, her page, and knelt before the man she 
had established on the throne, the man who was 
to consign her to a throne of fagots. 

Kneeling at his feet she said: 

"Fair King, now is God's will accomplished. 
It was his decree that I should raise the siege 
of Orleans and bring you to this city of Rheims 
to receive your sacred anointing, making clear 
that you are the true King and he to whom 
France should belong." 

In spite of the hurried nature of the corona- 
tion, Charles was provided with the usual gifts 
for the cathedral. There were draperies of satin 
and damask and velvet in green and red and 
white, and a silver vase containing thirteen gold 
coins or medals. 

Jeanne found her reward not only in the ac- 
complishment of her mission but in seeing her 
father once again. He and the "Uncle" who had 
so loyally helped her make her way to Vaucou- 
leurs came to Rheims to see the coronation and 



THE CORONATION 183 

to speak once more to Jeanne and her brothers. 
Jeanne saw them again with joy. Jacques d'Arc 
may have had an axe to grind at the same time 
that he made this journey of loyalty to his king 
and affection to his daughter. A fortnight later 
Charles "at the request of our beloved Jeanne 
the Maid" ordered for Domremy and Greux ex- 
emption of taxes. Asking something for herself 
or anything so closely related to her as her birth- 
place was so foreign to Jeanne's nature that it 
seems almost sure that the idea was her father's. 
At her trial Jeanne said that though she heard 
her directing Voice daily, "never have I asked 
of it any recompense but the salvation of my 
soul." At any rate, the Domremy folk paid no 
taxes until after the reign of Louis XV. 

Jacques stayed on in Rheims for a month, and 
when he went home it was with a sum of money 
given him through Jeanne, with his inn account 
paid, and bestriding a new horse. 

But Jeanne rode forward to her fate. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 

With the coronation of Charles, the Maid 
reached the summit of her success and of her 
influence. Except for a few who trusted her, 
knights and nobles doubted her ability or were 
jealous of her ascendancy; the plain people 
loved her and believed in her. At Loches they 
pressed about her and kissed her feet; at Rheims 
they touched their rings against hers that the 
healing that was in her might flow out from her 
into them; poor folk asked alms from her and 
never were refused. She acted as godmother for 
many children, giving them the name of 
Charles if they were boys or of Jeanne if they 
were girls, though sometimes she let pref- 
erences of the mothers prevail. At Lagny she 
joined several other young girls in praying for 
the return of breath to a child whose face was 
black from suffocation. He did indeed yawn 
and his proper color returned. He died later, 
though not before he was baptized. At Bourges 
women ^'brought paternosters and other reli- 

184 



THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 185 

gious objects that she might touch them; but 
Jeanne laughed, saying, 'Touch them yourselves. 
Your touch will do them as much good as 
mine.' " 

The deliverance of Orleans and the corona- 
tion of Charles were the two duties for whose 
doing Jeanne was born into the world, accord- 
ing to her own words. She foresaw the return 
from England of the Duke of Orleans, concern- 
ing whom she had many revelations from her 
Voices, and she foresaw that Paris would once 
more fall into the hands of the House of Valois, 
but if she had any foreknowledge of a personal 
part in these two events we are not sure. 

At any rate, from now on the obstructive tac- 
tics of her opponents were more successful, her 
opposition to them less determined. Perhaps 
it was because at first she was so innocent of any 
political opposition that she did not even see it 
but went straight forward, looking neither to the 
right nor left. Perhaps it was because she was, 
unconsciously it may be, worn from the contin- 
ual delays, indecisions, doubts, hesitations, fears 
that hedged her in. One girl cannot supply 
courage, confidence, and military intelligence 
for an entire army! 

"O, how one envies now that Maid of France, 

Who, riding all in steel, led armies on." * 
* Stephen Phillips' "Armageddon." 



i86 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

But her lot even in the days of her success was 
to be envied only by the iron-willed. Nothing 
but her determination could have brought 
Charles to his anointing; even her determination 
was to fail before the combination of her leaders' 
treachery and her King's ingratitude. 

Precious time had been lost between the vic- 
tory at Beaugency and the consecration at 
Rheims. If those wasted days had been spent 
in marching swiftly on to Paris, or, perhaps, in 
making the raid into Normandy that some of 
Charles's advisers suggested as a bait to draw 
the English, something lasting might have been 
accomplished for the kingdom. 

But the lost hours could never be regained 
and yet more hours were to be lost. The Duke 
of Burgundy, who had never answered Jeanne's 
letter begging peace nor the other inviting him 
to the coronation, now sent a deputation to 
Rheims to negotiate a truce. The ambassadors 
arrived just in time to put a stop to Charles's 
projected march on Paris which Bedford, the 
Regent, knew about and which had been an- 
nounced by messenger sent from Rheims to 
Charles's queen at Bourges on the coronation 
day. The discussions with Burgundy lasted for 
days and ended in the making of a truce of a 
fortnight. 

Probably Charles hoped to make a treaty 



THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 187 

which would include England as well as Bur- 
gundy. His foes, however, intended nothing 
but to gain delay during which they might 
strengthen their forces. 

Bedford, during the two weeks, was working 
desperately to reinforce his army. Detach- 
ments had come across the Channel and he had 
welcomed them with joy. He had received a 
large sum of money from England. He had 
stirred up the old hatred against Charles as 
the murderer of John the Fearless of Burgundy, 
though every one knew that Charles was a mere 
lad at the time and had no responsibility for 
even his presence at the bloody scene. 

In distinction from all this activity the King 
started on July 21 on a gentle amble through 
the country, touching poor wretches afflicted 
with scrofula, entering Soissons and receiving 
by messenger offers of submission from Cha- 
teau-Thierry, Compiegne, ancient Laon, capi- 
tal of the Carlovingian kings, and from other 
towns ready to be taken in the net of the first 
fisherman who came along, be he Armagnac or 
Burgundian. 

To Americans, these are now familiar names, 
Rheims and Soissons as the two upper points 
of the triangle on the war map of July, 191 8, 
with Chateau-Thierry at the lower tip. How 
the work of our untried, men at Chateau- 



i88 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Thierry heartened all America, and how we 
watched the neck of the bag tighten day by day 
as the American and Allied troops crowded 
back the holders of the salient! 

The American entrance into Chateau- 
Thierry was far different from that of Charles 
in 1429. He entered the town on July 29, after 
only a slight skirmish, and stayed there until 
August I, when he crossed the Marne in all 
peacefulness. Then he turned, not towards 
Paris, the goal to which the Maid was looking, 
but southward again, apparently indifferent to 
what was going on in the capital and leaving 
Rheims and Soissons to meet the vengeance of 
the Burgundians as best they could. 

Jeanne, at least, felt some responsibility for 
Rheims and Soissons. She sent a letter to the 
citizens of Rheims in which she reassured them, 
promising to keep the King's army together and 
^'in readiness at the end of fifteen days if peace 
is not made." 

Trailing along aimlessly through the coun- 
try, it is not remarkable that Charles's men 
found themselves cut off by the more vigilant 
enemy from farther retreat southward. They 
were practically obliged to turn toward Paris, a 
route probably not unwelcome to Jeanne. It 
was while they were riding through the towns 
of La Ferte and Crespy-en-Valois that the peo- 



t f t*.<i_JL.LiL^Lk_ >. 



rrrff 




THE PEAK OF THE LOAD 189 

pie came out to greet the king with cries of 
^'Noel" and that Jeanne is reported by Dunois 
to have expressed a wish that seems to show that 
her heart was not in her work now that the two 
feats of her mission were accomplished. 

^^The Maid was then riding between the 
Archbishop of Rheims and myself," says Du- 
nois. " 'This is a good people,' she said to us. 
'I have seen none elsewhere who rejoiced as 
much at the coming of so noble a King. How 
happy should I be if, when my days are done, 
I might be buried hereP 

" 'Jeanne/ then said the Archbishop to her, 
'in what place do you hope to die?' 

" 'Where it shall please God,' she answered; 
'for I am not certain of either the time or the 
place, any more than you are yourself. Would 
it might please God, my Creator, that I might 
retire now, abandon arms and return to serve 
my father and mother and to take care of their 
sheep with my sister and my brothers, who 
would be so happy to see me again.' " 

While both armies were almost in sight of 
the great city, Bedford sent an insulting letter 
to Charles, "you who now call yourself King," 
laying at his door the miseries of France, charg- 
ing him with the murder of the former Duke of 
Burgundy, declaring that his army was led by 
a depraved woman "dressed like a man" and 



I90 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

by a renegade friar — Brother Richard — and 
challenging him to set his army in battle array 
and meet his enemies in the open field. 

Charles swallowed these discourtesies and 
nothing vigorous happened, though Jeanne par- 
ticipated in several skirmishes and tried vainly 
to make the English come out of their well- 
defended post to give battle. Tired of waiting, 
Bedford withdrew and Charles set himself to 
the more agreeable occupation of receiving the 
submission of the surrounding towns, Senlis 
with its remains of Gallo-Roman fortifications; 
Beauvais, whose tapestries are world-famous, 
whose litany long contained as a remembrance 
to the Hundred Years' War the words, "From 
the cruelties of the English, O Lord, deliver 
us," and whose bishop in Jeanne's day was that 
Cauchon, her tormentor and her judge to whom 
she addressed the formidable accusation, 
"Bishop, through you I die." 

Charles found himself comfortable at Com- 
piegne and lingered there. Jeanne, wearied of 
waiting, urged d'Alengon to action. 

"Fair Duke," she said, "prepare your soldiers 
and those of the other captains, for, by my staff, 
I have a desire to see Paris more closely than 
I have seen it yet." 



CHAPTER XX 

BEFORE PARIS 

Even if Jeanne knew deep down in her heart 
that her mission ended with the coronation of 
the king at Rheims, she must nevertheless have 
been filled with excitement when she started 
forth to ride to Paris. We can imagine that 
Louis and Raymond polished her armor till it 
gleamed like silver and that her serene and 
joyous face looked out from her casque with 
ardor and enthusiasm. The days of the king's 
irresolution seemed to have passed, though she 
was making the venture of riding forth ahead 
of him just as she had started from Gien to 
Rheims. Then, however, she went sure that he 
would follow, for her mission demanded his 
presence at the cathedral of Rheims. Now she 
had to take the chance of his being converted 
over night to some other project by the unscru- 
pulous men who cared nothing for his honor or 
for the glory of France. 

D'Alengon, young and ardent, her "fair 
Duke," rode with her. Could they have looked 
into the future they would have been well 

191 



192 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

pleased to know that their recent mild experi- 
ences had at least brought over to the king a 
group of towns that remained loyal to him and 
hence a source of anxiety to their foes. 

At Senlis they added to their band the force 
of the general who had gained that city, and 
three days later they rested with their army 
some five miles out of Paris at Saint Denis. 

This town is of ancient date and of the great- 
est historical interest. It is named after Denis, 
the Apostle to the Gauls in the third century, 
who was martyred in Paris. Tradition has it 
that after he was decapitated he picked up his 
head and walked into the country, seeking rest 
and finding none until a good woman offered 
him burial. Over his remains a chapel was 
built that was already some two hundred years 
old when Saint Genevieve by prayer and fast- 
ing turned away Attila from the city. She re- 
stored the chapel, and a hundred years later 
"good King Dagobert" rebuilt and extended it. 

The existing church was begun about two 
hundred years before Jeanne's day by Louis 
VI, who shouted as his battle cry, "Montjoie 
Saint Denis" and who adopted the pennant of 
Saint Denis, the oriflamme or golden flame, as 
the standard of the kings of France. This royal 
standard was used only when the kings went 
into battle in person. Since the defeat of the 



BEFORE PARIS 193 

French by the English at the battle of Agin- 
court when Jeanne was three years old, the 
oriflamme never has left the Abbey. In replica 
it stands to-day in the choir of the church to 
the left of the high altar. 

The Abbey of Saint Denis was the burial 
place of the kings of France for no less than 
twelve hundred years — from Dagobert to Louis 
XVIII. In addition to its multitudes of inter- 
esting monuments it is filled with memories of 
interesting people. When Dagobert's Abbey 
was completed Charlemagne came to Saint 
Denis to its dedication, though he never went 
five miles farther and entered the city of Paris. 
When Louis IX, Saint Louis, brought home the 
Crown of Thorns from one of the crusades, he 
entered Paris at the head of a long military and 
ecclesiastical procession, the monks of the Ab- 
bey of Saint Denis among his followers. The 
eloquent Abelard lived here for a time during 
the twelfth century. Here rested the heart of 
Bertrand du Guesclin, the sturdy Constable of 
France, grandfather of Jeanne's friend, Guy de 
Laval, who wrote his mother that "she seemed 
to me a thing divine." Before the door of the 
Abbey Henry of Navarre, recently converted to 
Catholicism, declared his new faith to the 
priests massed before the sacred building. His 
popularity with the people is proven by the 



194 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

fact that during the French Revolution neither 
his tomb in the Abbey nor his bones were dis- 
turbed by the mobs that ravaged all consecrated 
buildings and all places dedicated to even the 
dust of royalty. It was in the Abbey that Na- 
poleon I was married to the Archduchess 
Marie Louise, his second wife. 

Upon the approach of the royal army Bed- 
ford withdrew his forces from Paris, leaving 
the Burgundians to defend the city. It is sup- 
posed that he did this because he knew that the 
citizens hated the English so furiously that they 
might surrender the city to Charles out of spite, 
whereas if the Burgundians were left alone 
their natural antipathy against the Armagnacs 
would make them hold it. 

The places of the departed hosts were taken 
in part by the inhabitants of the town of Saint 
Denis, who feared a day of reckoning with 
Charles because they had recognized the Eng- 
lish king as king of France. Of the loyalists 
who were left, some brought their babies to the 
Maid that she might hold them in baptism. 

Charles appears to have been very comforta- 
ble at Compiegne and Senlis, engaged in politi- 
cal deals with the Burgundians and staying at 
a respectful distance from Paris, where there 
was a prospect of some fighting. Again and 
again d'Alengon begged him to make his head- 



BEFORE PARIS 195 

quarters at Saint Denis so that his army might 
have the inspiration of his presence. He pre- 
ferred that there should be no fighting, or, if 
there must be fighting, that a girl should do it 
for him. It was only after long persuasion that 
he advanced toward his capital, and then he 
went no nearer to it than Saint Denis, five miles 
away. 

The Maid and d'Alengon, however, were 
there for work. Every day they made skirm- 
ishes against the walls of Paris, seeking the best 
places to attack. Every day they exchanged 
shots with the bowmen on the walls, who 
heaped insults on the warrior Maid. There 
can be no doubt that Jeanne was in dead earnest 
in her purpose to take the city for the king if it 
could be done, although she said at her trial 
that her Voice told her ^'to remain at Saint 
Denis, in France." D'Alengon's efforts do not 
seem to be so whole-hearted. Those of the 
other leaders look like treachery to their cause, 
or, at any rate, to Jeanne, for Charles himself 
seems to have been none too loyal to his own 
standard. 

It is hard to guess the reason for Charles's 
strange doings at this time, unless we accept 
the idea that he was trying to please the Bur- 
gundians in the hope that they would induce the 
English to make peace. Jeanne was more 



196 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

simple-minded. She believed that there could 
be no peace with the English unless they were 
across the Channel. When they were driven 
out of the country then there might be some 
chance of Burgundian and Armagnac striking 
hands. 

But Charles continued his attempts to bribe 
the Burgundians, even to trying to turn over to 
them towns, like Compiegne, that were sturdily 
loyal to him, and of course his support of an at- 
tack upon Paris was the purest make-believe. 

As was customary, d'Alengon sent a letter 
to the Paris garrison summoning it to surren- 
der. They paid no more attention to it than 
the Duke of Burgundy had paid to Jeanne's let- 
ter praying that the warring factions in France 
might come together in friendship. 

On the day of the attack, September 8, the 
Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the preparations 
of the royal army seem to have been most un- 
important. There were no arrangements for 
combined operations on different sides of the 
city; there were no heavy guns; there were in- 
sufficient supplies of fagots and such material 
to fill the moat. Worst of all, there was no at- 
tempt to effect a surprise. Instead of bringing 
up attacking material under cover of night, 
Charles's army did not leave Saint Denis until 
after breakfast and did not appear before the 



BEFORE PARIS 197 

Saint Honore Gate until two o'clock in the 
afternoon. 

The defenders of the town, looking out from 
the walls, saw but a small force opposing them. 
The main body of the French army was at a 
distance so great that what cannon they had 
were useless. Jeanne rode as usual at the head 
of her troops. Straight up to the dry ditch she 
went and there she commanded bundles of 
fagots to be thrown in to make a sort of bridge 
over which the soldiers might pass. 

Once over herself, she sounded with her lance 
the water of the moat to find its depth and was 
dismayed to discover that, as at Jargeau, be- 
cause of the height of the river, the moat was 
too full to pass without the aid of some better 
filler than pieces of wood. Impatiently she 
urged on the men-at-arms that they should 
hurry the bringing up of the needed supplies. 
The archers above, seeing that she was not be- 
ing supported by her men, increased in courage, 
and poured a rain of arrows upon such of the 
French as persisted. 

Within the town there was an attempted up- 
rising. A chronicler who was in Paris at the 
time wrote: ^^At this moment the disaffected 
or bribed people in the town raised shouts 
throughout the whole place on either side of 
the bridges, yelling that ^all is lost, that the 



iq8 the maid of ORLEANS 



enemy has entered': with cries of Sauve qui 
pent! 

^Thereon all the people in the churches at 
sermon were panicstricken, and most of them 
fled to their houses and shut the doors." 

All through the afternoon and into the eve- 
ning the Maid kept urging on her men, even 
after an arrow had pierced her thigh. Carried 
into a sheltered spot, she continued her appeals 
until at last de Gaucourt sent soldiers who car- 
ried her from the scene of battle, still protest- 
ing that with energy and force the town might 
still be taken. 

Being in the heartiest of health, a slight 
wound troubled Jeanne but little. She said at 
her trial that in five days she recovered from 
the wound she received in the trenches of Paris. 
On the very next day after the fight she rose 
early, eager to renew the charge, for her de- 
termination was of the strongest. Her hopes 
were raised by the arrival of a knight and some 
half hundred men who had been English ad- 
herents. But not all the French were in agree- 
ment about the attack, and while they w^re 
arguing over the matter messengers came from 
Charles forbidding a renewal of the attack and 
ordering the Maid to return to Saint Denis. 

Disappointed, she and d'Alengon and the rest 
who were truly grieved at seeing the oppor- 



BEFORE PARIS 199 

tunity slip by them, reluctantly obeyed. The 
only bright spot in the sky was their expectation 
of making an attack on the next day over a 
bridge which d'Alengon had built between 
Saint Denis and Paris. They started forth on 
this adventure on the morning of the tenth, only 
to find that the bridge had been destroyed dur- 
ing the night by order of no less interested a 
person than King Charles himself. If he truly 
wanted to capture his capital he took strange 
ways to accomplish his purpose. 

In gratitude for her escape from death from 
her wound under the walls of Paris, Jeanne 
offered before a statue of Our Lady in the Ab- 
bey at Saint Denis her whole suit of white — 
unornamented — armor, '^as beseems a soldier, 
together with a sword I had won before Paris." 

Three days later Charles sneaked away from 
Saint Denis, taking his army with him. The 
English returned and took possession of the 
Maid's unsullied harness, and now there re- 
mains of her attempt upon Paris only an in- 
cised slab at Saint Denis representing her 
armor, and in Paris an equestrian statue upon 
nearly the spot where she received her wound 
from the Burgundian arrow. 

The months of Jeanne's ''one short year" 
were drawing swiftly on. 



CHAPTER XXI 

NOW HERE, NOW THERE 

Jeanne must have been sick at heart when 
she turned her horse's head south toward the 
pleasant Loire towns that the King loved be- 
cause they were already his and he need not 
concern himself about sieges or attacks or cap- 
tures. Returning to Gien, where he had held 
such "long and weary councils" before he 
pulled himself together to go to Rheims, 
Charles allowed his army to disperse and each 
small band rode away with its lord and felt 
itself no longer bound by any common purpose. 

It is true that the spirit of fighting France 
had not entirely died away. There were still 
some who would have fought wherever the 
Maid led and there were soldiers who felt that 
she had won something lasting for the King 
when she won the towns on the road to Paris. 

D'Alengon, whose cooperation with Jeanne 
always worked to advantage, was now eager 
for the postponed Normandy campaign. 
Charles and La Tremoille, however, would not 

200 



NOW HERE, NOW THERE 2011 

finance it. Charles went with the Queen to 
Bourges and then made a miniature triumphal 
progress from one loyal town to another, stay- 
ing nowhere very long, but graciously accept- 
ing gifts and attentions from the worthy 
citizens. 

When Jeanne rode from Vaucouleurs to 
greet the King at Chinon on that adventurous 
expedition so insignificant in danger beside 
what she had since encountered, she had rid- 
den through a country held by Burgundians. 
They never had been driven away, and towns 
along the upper reaches of the Loire and peril- 
ously near to Bourges where the King loved to 
hold his court were garrisoned by Charles's 
foes. They constantly harassed his little army 
on the flank and rear in order to divert attention 
from the bigger interests around Paris. About 
six weeks after the humiliating departure from 
Paris, Jeanne and that d'Albret who had held 
the royal sword at Charles's coronation because 
the Constable was not allowed to be present, 
were sent out to see what might be done to abol- 
ish this annoying practice. 

Bourges had long before found that it was 
an expensive luxury to have the King make his 
residence there. There were times when he did 
not pay his tradesmen's bills; more occasions 
when he depended on the townsfolk to ration 



202 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

his army. An archbishop under royal patron- 
age was an expensive luxury. Now the citizens 
were asked to give a goodly number of gold 
crowns to pay for the sieges of La Charite and 
Saint Pierre-le-Moustier, near-by Burgundian 
towns. They seem not to have objected. Prob- 
ably it was a bit wearing on the nerves to live 
in constant expectation of attack and they were 
willing to take steps to put down the nuisance. 

Saint Pierre was the farther off, and the 
Maid and d'Albret went there first. Jeanne's 
equerry, ^^d'Aulon, who stayed by her so faith- 
fully through all the smoke of battle for the 
space of a whole year," thought the manner of 
taking the town to be worthy of telling at some 
length to the examiners. 

" . . . . after the Maid and her followers 
had made siege against the town for some time, 
an assault was ordered to be made against the 
town; and so it was done, and those who were 
there did their best to take it; but, on account 
of the great number of people in the town, the 
great strength thereof and also the great resis- 
tance made by those within, the French were 
compelled and forced to retreat, for the reasons 
aforesaid; and, at that time the Deponent 
[d'Aulon] was wounded by a shot in the heel, 
so that without crutches he could neither keep 
up nor walk: he noticed that the Maid was left 



NOW HERE, NOW THERE 203 

accompanied by very few of her own people 
and others; and the Deponent, fearing that 
trouble would follow therefrom, mounted a 
horse, and went immediately to her aid, asking 
her what she was doing there alone and why 
she did not retreat like the others. She, after 
taking her helmet from her head, replied that 
she was not alone, and that she had yet in her 
company fifty thousand of her people, and that 
she would not leave until she had taken the 
town ; 

*^And the Deponent saith that, at that time — 
whatever she might say — she had not with her 
more than four or five men, and this he knows 
most certainly, and many others also, who in 
like manner saw her; for which cause he told 
her again that she must leave that place, and re- 
tire as the others did. And then she told him 
to have fagots and hurdles brought to make a 
bridge over the trenches of the town, in order 
that they might approach it the better. And 
as she said these words to him, she cried in a 
loud voice: ^Every one to the fagots and hur- 
dles to make the bridge!' which was immedi- 
ately done and prepared, at which the Depo- 
nent did much marvel, for immediately the 
town was taken by assault, without very great 
resistance." 

Jeanne's spirit was fifty thousand strong, 



204 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

whatever her following of men-at-arms might 
be, and her dash across the moats is the tradi- 
tional way of fighting of France. 

". . . her splendid habit 
Is in the rush, the onset, the assault." * 

As might have been expected from so reli- 
gious a spirit, Jeanne did not allow the soldiers 
to pillage the church at Saint Pierre-le-Mous- 
tier. They wanted to seize the sacred vessels 
and other treasure, "but Jeanne prohibited and 
forbade them with great energy so that nothing 
was taken away," says one of the surgeons to 
the King. 

Jeanne did not have the same fortune at La 
Charite as at Saint Pierre-le-Moustier. Be- 
cause this place was nearer Bourges it was more 
important that it should be in the hands of 
Charles's friends. But Charles did not follow 
up his instructions with money or supplies. As 
far as he was concerned the Armagnac army 
might live off the country. But living off the 
country along the Loire in November was no 
easy task. Jeanne sent to one town and another 
asking for money and food for her forces. The 
replies were always in the affirmative, but, ex- 
cept for some small donations and a liberal con- 
tribution of arms and men from Orleans, ever 

* Stephen Phillips in "Armageddon." 



NOW HERE, NOW THERE 205 

faithful to its deliverer, there the matter ended. 
The result was that d'Albret and the Maid were 
forced to raise the siege and withdraw with 
their hungry troops. It was through no fault 
of her Voices that this happened, Jeanne de- 
clared. They did not advise her going to this 
attack. ^^I went there at the request of the men- 
at-arms." 

Charles made another truce with the Bur- 
gundians — it was his chief amusement just now 
— that was to last until Easter, April 16, 
1430. That is, until spring weather made fight- 
ing easier. They took warfare more comforta- 
bly in the fifteenth century than in the twen- 
tieth. 

With the cessation of war, Jeanne was able 
to make holiday for a bit. In December the 
King gave letters of nobility to Jeanne's father, 
mother, and three brothers and all their de- 
scendants, male and female, ^'that the memory 
of the divine glory and of so many favors may 
endure and increase forever." The family 
name was changed to ^'du Lys" and Charles 
indicated the arms — "a shield azure, two fleurs- 
de-lys of gold and a sword betwixt." Jeanne 
never bore the shield and arms herself, she told 
her judges, but the King granted arms to her 
brothers to please them. If Jeanne earned for 
herself only martyrdom, she at least won com- 



2o6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

fort for her family. One of the Maid's brothers 
became the Captain of Vaucouleurs, Robert de 
Baudricourt's position, and her mother, who 
lived to a ripe old age, enjoyed a liberal pen- 
sion from the grateful burgesses of Orleans. 

These same burgesses in January, 1430, gave 
a grand banquet for Jeanne and several other 
people of distinction, one of whom was that 
Maitre Jean Rabateau in whose house Jeanne 
had lodged when she was undergoing the long 
and stupid examination at Poitiers, whose re- 
sult ensured her acceptance as a member of 
the Dauphin's army. There was game in plenty 
at the feast and wine was offered to the guests. 
This was the last time that the Maid visited the 
city that never failed to show its gratitude to 
her during her life and never has failed for 
almost five centuries. 

It may have been at this time that Jeanne 
took a lease of a house in Orleans. It was the 
natural place for her to live if ever she left 
Domremy and its herds and pleasant valley. 
Where else was she so beloved? 

Somewhat less than a year before when 
Jeanne stayed for a time in the Queen of Sicily's 
town of Tours, where her household was ap- 
pointed and her armor ordered, she had made 
the acquaintance of the Scot who had painted 
her banner. Now, in February, 1430, this 



NOW HERE, NOW THERE 207 

man's daughter was to be married, and Jeanne 
wrote to the people of Tours suggesting that 
they give the young woman a handsome pres- 
ent. The city fathers argued long about it; one 
might almost think they were canny Scots 
themselves. Then they decided that it would 
be an improper use to make of city money, but 
they agreed to go in force to the wedding and 
to furnish the wine for the wedding breakfast. 

On the middle of March Jeanne wrote from 
Sully, La Tremoille's estate, where she was 
visiting, in company with the King, to reassure 
the people of Rheims who were fearing to be 
besieged by their enemies. She told them spir- 
itedly that if the foe came they must shut their 
gates and that she would hasten to their assis- 
tance and would make the foe buckle on spurs 
forthwith. She hinted, also, as some good news 
that she was not at liberty to tell them because 
she feared ^'lest the letters be taken on the road 
and said tidings be seen." 

This piece of news probably concerned a 
widespread plot against the English in Paris, 
which came to naught because the English cap- 
tured the prior of the Carmelite monks at 
Melun and tortured a confession from him. 

The King's foes were busy plotters at this 
time, for it was only a few days later that Jeanne 
wrote again to the people of Rheims to tell 



2o8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

them that the King knew all about the con- 
spiracy of the Burgundians within Rheims who 
had in mind the crowning of the little English 
king. 

"You will soon hear from me at greater 
length. Other matters I write not to you for 
the present, except that all of Brittany is in 
favor of the French and that the Duke is to 
send to the King three hundred men-at-arms 
paid for two months. To God I commend you. 
May he keep you." 

At the end of the month, Jeanne, tired of 
doing nothing at Sully, rode forth with her 
faithful d'Aulon and a handful of men ready 
to do something — anything — for her side as 
soon as the truce expired. She added a few 
soldiers at Lagny-on-the-Marne. During the 
week after Easter she entered Melun, about 
thirty miles out of Paris, a town so old that it 
was mentioned by Caesar. For a decade it had 
been in the hands of the English, who turned it 
over to the Burgundians a little while after 
Jeanne's departure from Paris in the autumn 
of 1429. When the truce was concluded the 
followers of Charles within the city expelled' 
the Burgundians and Jeanne and her little band 
entered with hardly a corporal's guard to dis- 
pute their way. 

The Maid must have been filled with happi- 



NOW HERE, NOW THERE 209 

ness that once more she was accomplishing 
something for the cause she had at heart. Yet 
it was here that she learned of her fate. 

^'Being in the trenches of Melun," she told 
her judges, ^4t was told me by my Voices — that 
is to say, by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret 
— 'Thou wilt be taken before Saint John's Day; 
and so it must be : do not torment thyself about 
it: be resigned: God will help thee.'" 

"Before this occasion at Melun," inquired 
her questioners, "had not your Voices ever told 
you that you would be taken?" 

"Yes, many times and nearly every day. And 
I asked of my Voices that, when I should be 
taken, I might die soon, without long suffering 
in prison; and they said to me: 'Be resigned to 
all — thus must it be.' " 

A tragic triumph, this at Melun! 



CHAPTER XXII 

CAPTURED 

No matter how sorely her heart longed for 
sympathy after the revelations at Melun, 
Jeanne told no one of them. If she had there 
would have been but small thirst for fighting 
in her followers and she knew well enough that 
no one likes to be connected with an enterprise 
or a person who is destined for failure. 

'^I consulted more often with the captains 
of the army," she said. The Voices seemed now 
to give her less guidance about her work for 
the King. She had done for him all that he de- 
served and more. 

Brave in her silence, she set out from Melun 
for Lagny, still nearer to Paris, for she was 
always eager to win towns near enough to the 
great city to harass any traffic going along its 
roads. 

On the way she found some work for her 
lance, for she met a roving band of English and 
Picards or Burgundians who had been burning 
and looting King Charles's towns, and she dis- 

210 



CAPTURED 211 

persed them with some slaughter. It may have 
been in this fight that she secured a Burgundian 
sword, which she wore during the remainder 
of her career in arms. The sword from Saint 
Catherine's chapel at Fierbois she had at 
Lagny, she told her examiners. 

"From Lagny to Compiegne I bore the sword 
of this Burgundian; it was a good sword for 
fighting." 

What became of her standard is not known. 
It may be that after she learned from her Voices 
that her capture was to be soon she did not risk 
taking with her the banner that she loved. 

From Lagny Jeanne went to Senlis, which 
she entered without trouble, and then she turned 
her attention to the large and flourishing town 
of Compiegne, which was in much the same 
predicament as Orleans a year before. 

Compiegne was one of Charles's good towns 
which had yielded to him just before Jeanne's 
unsuccessful attack upon Paris. The citizens 
seem to have acted from desire, not fear, for 
they persisted in remaining loyal to the King 
even when he did his best to get rid of them. 
When he made the extraordinary truces of the 
autumn of 1429 he tried to give over the city 
to the Duke of Burgundy as a sort of hostage 
for his fulfilment of the terms of the treaties. 
But the people of Compiegne refused to be dis- 



212 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

posed of in this careless fashion, and remained 
loyal even against the King's desire. 

Perhaps it was because the Duke of Bur- 
gundy was annoyed over their dislike of such 
a turncoat arrangement as well as because the 
town was rich in itself and well situated with 
reference to the roads leading south to Paris 
that he was extremely anxious to gain it. The 
town commands important waterways, for it is 
on the river Oise, not far from where the Aisne 
and the Aronde flow into the larger stream. 

Very much like Orleans, except that it is on 
the south side of the river instead of the north, 
Compiegne was protected by the Oise and by 
moats filled with Oise water. A bridge crossed 
to the northern bank, where it was strongly for- 
tified. Just as a forest full of wild beasts and 
robbers protected Orleans on the north and 
made even brave men think twice about riding 
through it to Paris, so a similar forest protected 
Compiegne on the south. It was a goodly city 
and worth striving for. 

And the Burgundians were striving so hard 
for it that the help of the Maid and her follow- 
ers was sorely needed. A little to the east was 
a small town, Choisy, keeping guard over a 
bridge across the Aisne. The Burgundians 
wanted the bridge, for if they controlled it the 
King's men would have a long ride to Soissons 



CAPTURED 213 

when they needed to cross. So they were at- 
tacking Choisy while Jeanne and her men rode 
north to a town called Pont I'Eveque, where 
there was a bridge across the Oise which they 
wanted to control. They hoped to cut the Bur- 
gundian communications from the north and 
then dash back and lend a helping hand to 
Choisy if it needed it. 

But Jeanne's star was waning. The attack 
was not successful. During the first moments 
all went well for the wearers of the Armagnac 
white, but the men of Pont PEveque managed 
to send messengers begging help from Noyon, 
where they had friends, and the reinforcements 
were too great for the Maid to meet. She was 
obliged to retire to Compiegne, and as the Bur- 
gundians had won the day at Choisy also, the 
city was crowded with the refugees from the 
two defeats. 

After this day of trouble the need for cutting 
the Burgundian communications from the north 
was greater than ever. Their army was press- 
ing southward persistently, and Jeanne and her 
captains determined to try to pass around them 
and attack them in the rear. With what disgust 
they must have realized that the loss of the 
bridge at Choisy necessitated their taking the 
long ride they had wanted to avoid! But on 
they went eastward to Soissons, which was held 



214 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

by a man supposed to be loyal to King Charles. 
Jeanne and a few others were admitted to the 
city and the main force was obliged to camp in 
the fields outside, as was the custom. 

And then the false Armagnac betrayed his 
friends to the Burgundians, and closed the river 
crossing against Jeanne. 

This move left the Burgundians free from 
attack north of the river and allowed them to 
mass their forces against Compiegne. At the 
same time it practically obliged the King^s men 
to disband, for the country in which they were 
could not support so many soldiers, nor could 
the city feed any more. 

So most of the captains who had joined the 
Maid retreated farther south, but Jeanne, who 
was always persistent, determined to help Com- 
piegne if her influence and the small band re- 
maining with her could be of any service. She 
did not know what day or hour might bring 
capture to her, and it took moral as well as 
physical courage to ride into the most danger- 
ous position in France at that time, feeling sure, 
as she did, that it might be the scene of her 
downfall. 

One of the historians of the time, who wrote 
the tale of Jeanne's adventure at Compiegne 
only a few years after it all happened, gives 
the following description: 



CAPTURED 215 

^^The 23d day of the month of May, the 
Maid, being in the said place of Crespy, learned 
that the Duke of Burgundy, with a great num- 
ber of men-at-arms and others, and the Earl of 
Arundel, had come to besiege the said town of 
Compiegne. About midnight she departed 
from the said place of Crespy, in the company 
of three hundred or four hundred fighting men. 
And although her followers said to her that she 
had too few people with her to pass through the 
army of the Burgundians and of the English, 
she exclaimed: ^By my staff we are enough; I 
am going to see my good friends of Com- 
piegne.' " 

It was a dashing ride through the night. 

Jeanne herself said, '^I arrived there secretly 
early in the morning and entered the town with- 
out the enemy knowing anything of it; and that 
same day, in the evening, I made the sally in 
which I was taken." 

For this was the day of which the Voices had 
told her. Though "they did not tell me the 
time; and if I had known it, I should not have 
gone," she confessed frankly. "Often I asked 
to know the hour: they never told me." 

"Did your Voices command you to make this 
sally from Compiegne and signify that you 
would be taken if you went?" persisted the 
questioners. 



si6 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

"If I had known the hour when I should be 
taken I should never have gone of my own free 
will," admitted the girl, who may well be par- 
doned if she clung to life with all the strength 
of her vigorous youth. Her devotion to her 
Voices makes her add, however: "I should al- 
ways have obeyed their commands in the end, 
whatever might happen to me." 

"When you made this sally from Compiegne 
had you any Voice or revelation about making 
it?" 

"That day I did not know at all that I should 
be taken and I had no other command to go 
forth ; but they had always told me it was nec- 
essary for me to be taken prisoner." 

"When you made this sally did you pass by 
the Bridge of Compiegne?" 

"I passed by the bridge and the bulwark." 

The bridge at Compiegne was protected by a 
drawbridge and at the end across the river from 
the town it was defended by a bulwark just as 
the bridge at Orleans was defended by the 
Tourelles. On the northern bank of the Oise 
lay marshes and the people of the city had built 
a highway across them for the convenience of 
horsemen and wagons coming into town from 
the little village of Margny which squatted at 
the foot of the line of hills that traces the far- 
ther side of the valley. 



CAPTURED 217 

It was against a Burgundian outpost stationed 
in this village of Margny that Jeanne directed 
her attack. Her retreat was covered by forces 
of men with cannon and ammunition stationed 

r 

on the walls, and by others who maneuvered 
boats that were covered to prevent their being 
sunk by missiles and designed to rescue any sol- 
diers who might be driven into the water. 

Leading four or five hundred men, the Maid 
rode forth upon a gray horse which she de- 
scribed as a ^'demi-charger.'^ It was the custom 
of the time for officers to wear brilliant colors 
so that their men might see them and follow 
them. Low visibility for officers is among the 
many new things of the Great War. Jeanne 
followed custom and wore over her armor a 
scarlet surcoat embroidered with gold. She 
must have been a flashing figure as she flew 
over the bridge and galloped across the high- 
way as fast as the good gray horse could go — 
for this was a surprise attack. 

It proved to be a complete surprise and it was 
crowned with success at first, for the Burgun- 
dians were resting and did not have time to put 
on their armor or saddle their horses. But un- 
fortunately for Jeanne, the skirmish was ob- 
served from the cliff above by ^'my Lord of 
Luxembourg," who was riding over from his 
own camp to reconnoiter. He sent post haste 



2i8 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

for reinforcements, and it was their coming that 
caused the Maid's undoing. 

"I passed by the bridge and the bulwark and 
went with the company of followers of my side 
against the followers of my Lord of Luxem- 
bourg/' she said. ^'I drove them back twice 
against the camp of the Burgundians, and the 
third time to the middle of the highway. The 
English who were there then cut off the road 
from me and my people between us and the 
bulwark. For this reason my followers re- 
treated, and in retreating across the fields on 
the Picardy side, near the bulwark, I was 
taken." 

This may well have been one of the occasions 
of which she spoke at one of her examinations : 
"I sometimes said to my followers: ^Go in 
boldly among the English!' and I myself did 
likewise." 

The enemy managed to get between Jeanne 
and the bridge. The captain within the city, 
seeing that he was threatened by an onrush of 
the foe, raised the drawbridge. Jeanne was 
forced off the highway into the marshy land. 
Her brothers stayed faithfully by her. So did 
d'Aulon and a few others. Another chronicler 
says: 

"An archer, a hard man and very churlish, 
having great spite that a woman of whom he 



CAPTURED 219 

had heard so much talk should drive back so 
many valiant men as she had done, caught her 
from one side by her surcoat of cloth-of-gold, 
and dragged her from her horse to the ground: 
she could find neither rescue nor help from her 
followers that she might be remounted, not- 
withstanding the pains they took." 

Jeanne was careful not to give her parole to 
any one. She had no intention of promising not 
to escape, nor of ceasing to bear arms for her 
King and his cause if she could find an oppor- 
tunity to do so. When she "was taken by some 
five or six acting together, some laying hands 
on her, others on her horse, and each saying, 
^Surrender to me and give parole,' she answered 
and said, T have sworn and given my parole to 
Another than you and to Him will I give my 
oath."^ 



CHAPTER XXIII 

IN CAPTIVITY 

There has been much argument among his- 
torians as to whether the Maid might not have 
been rescued by a spirited effort on the part of 
the force in Compiegne. Was a swift sally 
across the bridge impossible? Might not the 
men fighting near the bulwark have prevented 
her being crowded off the highway into the 
marshes? Was it necessary to haul up the 
drawbridge so soon, thereby cutting off Jeanne's 
retreat into the town? 

Who can prove the truth of one side of the 
discussion over the other? Perhaps the mild 
condemnation of the captain of the city that 
he acted with too great prudenc^, took no 
chances even for the saving of her who was 
at that moment risking her life for him and 
his, is the nearest to the facts. 

At any rate, it is good to know that Jeanne's 
own kin stood by her and so also did her 
equerry, d'Aulon, who remained in attendance 
upon her for some time during her captivity. 

220 



IN CAPTIVITY 221 

Proud of his capture, Jean de Luxembourg 
at once sent off a messenger to Paris to tell the 
news to his brother, the Chancellor of France. 
He made it known immediately to the Parlia- 
ment and there was much rejoicing in the 
Anglo-Burgundian city. Te Deums were sung 
in all the churches and the townsfolk hailed 
with delight this blow to the power of their 
enemies, the Armagnacs. 

The University of Paris, which was at that 
'time considered to be the most important au- 
thority in the world in matters of heresy and 
witchcraft, straightway made a formal demand 
upon the Duke of Burgundy, Jean de Luxem- 
bourg's superior officer, for his prisoner. She 
had committed acts inspired by the devil and 
by none other, they declared, and it was their 
right to try her. 

Jeanne's first place of detention was at Clair- 
oix, the little town from which Jean de Luxem- 
bourg had sent out his men to help his brothers- 
in-arms w'hen the Maid galloped across the 
causeway and into the camp at Margny. She 
was too important a prisoner to be kept in an 
unfortified place and in a few days she was re- 
moved to the castle of Beaulieu, a few miles 
north of that Pont I'Eveque where Jeanne and 
her followers had been put to flight by the Bur- 
gundians when they were trying to win the 



222 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

bridge across the Oise. Here she had d'Aulon's 
comforting companionship, but she was greatly 
disturbed concerning the affairs of Compiegne. 
D'Aulon brought her distressing news. 

^^That poor town of Compiegne, which you 
have so much loved up to this time, will fall 
again into the hands and the power of the ene- 
mies of France!" 

"It will not be," cried Jeanne, "for all the 
places which the King of Heaven hath subdued 
and put into the hands and jurisdiction of the 
gentle King Charles by my means, will not be 
retaken by his enemies, so long as he will take 
pains to keep them." 

It was because she hoped to make her way 
to Compiegne and help her good friends there 
that she tried to escape from Beaulieu. 

"Tell us," asked her examiners, "how did you 
think to escape from the Castle of Beaulieu be- 
tween two planks of wood?" 

"Never was I prisoner in such a place that I 
would not willingly have escaped. Being in 
that Castle, I could have shut my keepers in 
the tower if it had not been that the porter 
espied me and encountered me. It did not 
please God that I should escape this time: it 
was necessary for me to see the English King, 
as my Voices had told me, as has been already 
said." 



IN CAPTIVITY 223 

While she was disturbed about the town she 
had not succeeded in helping, those towns she 
had helped were in grief over her capture. At 
Tours public prayers were offered for her; 
medals of lead stamped with her figure were 
distributed among the people of the cities along 
the Loire; many folk, both rich and poor, paid 
for masses to be said for her safety; and col- 
lects have come down to us in which God is 
besought to deliver the Maid from the hands of 
her enemies and to burst her bonds. 

It was not to be. Her death was to be more 
useful to France and more an example to man- 
kind than her longer life could have been. 

Charles, always too indolent to be grateful, 
made no effort to help the girl who gave her 
life for him. When the time came for her to 
be sold he might at least have made a bid, but 
he did not. A blustering threat, never acted 
upon, was the nearest he came to doing any- 
thing for her. 

When Jeanne had secured the submission of 
Beauvais for Charles, the Bishop of Beauvais, 
Cauchon, who had been pro-Burgundian and 
pro-English, lost the huge sums of money that 
came to him by right of his churchly office. 
This gave him a personal grudge against the 
Maid, and as an enemy of the Armagnacs he 
had political reasons for wishing the destruc- 



224 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

tion of any captain who had been as fortunate 
as she. 

On the ground that Jeanne had been captured 
in his bishopric, which was not true, he accepted 
from the English and Burgundian leaders the 
mission of buying her from Jean de Luxem- 
bourg and turning her over for trial to an ec- 
clesiastical court in which he should sit as 
judge. His ecclesiastical court was not really 
a court of the Church; it represented merely 
the politically-minded priests of the English 
and Burgundians. 

The English and Burgundians had a reason 
other than their fear of Jeanne's influence en- 
couraging her own people and frightening 
theirs for wanting her put out of the way and 
in such a manner as would make a great im- 
pression on all France. They wanted a court 
to prove that Jeanne was a witch and had done 
her work by the help of the Evil One, so that 
Charles, for whom she had worked, might thus 
be indirectly accused of being in league with 
the devil. 

Perhaps it was because of her attempt to es- 
cape from Beaulieu that Jeanne was removed 
to the Castle of Beaurevoir, still farther north, 
and near Cambrai, the place where American 
Engineers building a service railroad during the 
Great War fought a sudden attack of the enemy 



IN CAPTIVITY 225 

with shovels, picks and any weapons that hap- 
pened to be lying about. Beaurevoir was a 
stronger place than Beaulieu. By some means or 
other news from Compiegne reached Jeanne, and 
she brooded over it until she threw herself 
down from the tower to the ground, some sixty 
feet. 

^Why did you throw yourself from the top 
of the tower at Beaurevoir?" her judges asked 
her. 

"I had heard that the people of Compiegne, 
all, to the age of seven years, were to be put to 
fire and sword; and I would rather have died 
than live after such a destruction of good peo- 
ple. That was one of the reasons. The other 
was that I knew I was sold to the English ; and 
I had rather die than be in the hands of my 
enemies, the English." 

"Did your Saints counsel you about it?" 

"Saint Catherine told me almost every day 
not to leap, that God would help me and also 
those at Compiegne. I said to Saint Catherine: 
^Since God will help those at Compiegne I wish 
to be there.' Saint Catherine said to me: ^Be 
resigned and do not falter; you will not be de- 
livered before seeing the King of England.' I 
answered her: ^Truly I do not wish to see him; 
I would rather die than fall into the hands of 
the English.' " 



226 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Her instinct was quite right about it. 

"After having fallen I was two or three days 
without eating," Jeanne went on. "By the leap 
I was so injured that I could neither eat nor 
drink and all the time I was consoled by Saint 
Catherine, who told me to confess and to beg 
pardon of God; and without fail those at Com- 
piegne would have help before Saint Martin's 
Day in the winter. Then I began to recover 
and to eat and was soon cured." 

It came about that Compiegne was relieved 
about ten days before Martinmas. The people 
had gone through much the same conditions of 
siege as those of Orleans, burning their suburbs 
and withdrawing within the walls. The be- 
siegers stationed heavy artillery where it would 
do serious damage to the city. But the captain 
held out bravely and at last a relief party at- 
tacked from outside at the same that the people 
within made a sortie, and the besiegers were 
forced to make a brisk retreat. 

Visitors seem to have been permitted to enter 
Jeanne's prison, for while she was at Beaure- 
voir two of the chief men of that town of Tour- 
nai to which she had sent an invitation to the 
King's coronation came to see her. She asked 
them to appeal to the people of Tournai for 
twenty or thirty gold crowns for her personal 
expenses. It never occurred to King Charles, 



IN CAPTIVITY 227 

evidently, that she might have any. The Tour- 
nai folk sent her promptly what she needed. 

At Beaurevoir lived Jean de Luxembourg's 
wife and aunt and step-daughter, and they were 
neither arrogant toward her as a peasant lass, 
nor afraid of her as a witch, nor threatening 
to her as an enemy and a prisoner. She was 
asked at her trial if she had not been told to 
take off her man's dress, and she answered that 
the ladies at Beaurevoir had given her cloth 
for a dress and that if she had not believed that 
it was God's will that she should wear man's 
dress for a time longer she would sooner have 
made the change ^'at the request of these ladies 
than of any other ladies in France, excepting 
my Queen." 

At Arras, to which Jeanne was sent from 
Beaurevoir, she was urged again to adopt 
woman's dress, but again she refused. Arras, 
^'on the map" in the Great War, used to be 
famous for its tapestries. It is an ancient town 
and, at least in the thirteenth century, had no 
peaceful reputation. A French poet* of the 
time addresses it as 

"Arras! Arras! full of strife, 
With calumnies and hatred rife." 

*Adam de la Halle. 



228 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

In Jeanne's day it was within the territory of 
the Duke of Burgundy and it was for that rea- 
son that the Maid was sent there for safer 
keeping than in towns farther south that might 
have leanings toward King Charles. It was 
while she was at Arras that she saw a painting 
of herself, the work of a Scottish artist. 

"It was like me," she admitted. "I was rep- 
resented fully armed, presenting a letter to my 
King, one knee on the ground." 

Time must have hung heavy on the hands of 
the peasant girl, who could neither read nor 
write. Perhaps she went back to her use of 
the distaff; perhaps Jean de Luxembourg's wife 
had taught her to embroider. She gained some 
comfort from her Voices, daily visitants. 

To raise a "king's ransom" — about eighty 
thousand dollars — was not easy even when the 
person to be ransomed was as hated and as de- 
, sired as Jeanne. But in November the Eng- 
lish at last paid down the money, which they 
had gathered together by levying taxes on Nor- 
mandy, and Jean de Luxembourg turned over 
his prisoner. 

Then the University of Paris charged Cau- 
chon with not pursuing diligently enough his 
task of hounding Jeanne to death, though he 
had made several long journeys about the 
matter. 




1 o 



IN CAPTIVITY 229 

Once started, her journey to Rouen was not 
long. A night she spent in the Castle of Drugy 
on her way to Crotoy on the sea at the mouth 
of the river Somme, where her ^^beau due," 
d'Alengon, had been imprisoned after the bat- 
tle of Verneuil. Gold had been able to ransom 
him and he had fought alongside the Maid for 
the cause they both loved. Now her battle days 
were in the past and no ransom could save her 
from the fate determined for 

". . . that good Joan whom Englishmen 
At Rouen doomed and burned her there." * 

From Crotoy she followed the coast to 
Dieppe and from there was taken to Rouen, 
which was the seat of the Duke of Bedford, 
who was Regent for Henry VI, and of the Eng- 
lish court in France. She was housed in a room 
in the tower of a castle built by Philip Augus- 
tus. The English boy-king himself was in an- 
other part of the castle. A tower is still shown 
at Rouen which is said to be Jeanne's prison, 
but probably it belonged to some other building. 

She was confined in the middle story in a 
dimly-lighted room that occupied the entire 
floor, a space forty-three feet in diameter. As 
this width included, however, the walls which 
were undoubtedly of great thickness, the room 

* Villon's "Ballad of Old-Time Ladies." 



230 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

was not very large for the number of people 
who now inhabited it. There were six, for 
Jeanne was never left alone, night or day, and 
by an excess of brutality, her five jailers were 
not women, but English men-at-arms of the 
roughest sort. 

^'Three of them stayed all night in the room 
and two outside the door of the room. I know 
of a surety," said a priest of Rouen, ''that at 
night she slept chained by the legs with two 
pairs of iron chains, and fastened closely to a 
chain going across the foot of her bed, held to 
a great piece of wood five or six feet long, and 
closed with a key, so that she could not move 
from her place." 

Truly the wondrous girl who had felt herself 
to be the messenger of God, and who had con- 
tinued to work for her ungenerous King even 
after she felt that her real mission had been ful- 
filled, seemed now to be among the fallen of 
the earth. 

Yet how Time has charged with honor the 
part she played, with regret the torments she 
suffered, with glory the death she died. 




ROMORANTIN — HOUSE WHERE JEANNE D'ARC SLEPT 



CHAPTER XXIV 

JEANNE'S TRIAL 

Cauchon made elaborate preparations for 
the trial of the Maid of Orleans. It seems 
hardly to have been worth the trouble, for all 
that he did deceived no one then as to the out- 
come of the trial or since as to its absolute in- 
justice. It was supposed to be a court held un- 
der the rules of the Inquisition, which declared 
that a convicted person should be given oppor- 
tunity for repentance in prison. 

To begin with, certain forms were gone 
through which allowed Cauchon to act as judge 
outside of his own bishopric of Beauvais. Then 
he selected judges known to be strongly pro- 
English and prepared to decide according to 
what was expected of them, regardless of the 
evidence. 

Jeanne was allowed no counsel to defend her 
but had to rely on her own wit against the clev- 
erness of skilled lawyers and theologians. She 
made an appeal to the Pope, but was told that 
the Pope was too far away. A Council of the 

231 



232 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Church was at the moment being held at Basle, 
but Cauchon took no risk of there being just 
and unprejudiced men there who might rob him 
of his prey. 

The Maid was held as a prisoner of the 
Church and was to be tried for heresy and 
witchcraft. Yet she had been questioned and 
passed at Poitiers by ecclesiastics of rank supe- 
rior to Cauchon. Furthermore, she was not kept 
in a Church prison where she would have been 
in the care of women. Every one knew that it 
was politics and not theology that lay behind her 
questioning. 

"Questioning" — for no indictment was drawn 
up against her. She was not told of what she 
was accused; she was merely brought into 
court to be interrogated and every art of the 
cross-questioner was used against her. She was 
interrupted, confused, bellowed at, contra- 
dicted, accused of having said one thing when 
she had said another, betrayed into theological 
hair-splitting. 

In spite of all these attempts to disconcert 
her, Jeanne's answers were so clear, so consis- 
tent, so repeatedly the same on the same points, 
so clever in their evasion of traps, that Cauchon 
resorted to other means to break her down. 
From the first, she was not permitted to hear 
mass, as had been the daily custom and consola- 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 233 

tion of her life. It was a genuine deprivation, 
and her detestable judge knew it and rebuked 
her guard who had allowed her to kneel before 
the chapel door on her way from her prison to 
the trial room. This room, by the way, was in 
the Chapel Royal, whose foundations were ex- 
cavated in 1908. Later sessions were held in a 
smaller room. 

With the attempt to break down the clearness 
of her mind was joined an attack upon her 
physical strength. She was never, night or day, 
without the presence of coarse men jailers, who 
jeered at her, insulted her, struck her, so that 
her face was scarred by their blows, her nerves 
wrung by their offensiveness, and her energy 
depleted by loss of sleep. 

The sessions began at eight in the morning 
and Jeanne was questioned for three hours 
without cessation. Another session was held in 
the afternoon. Sometimes the questions were 
piled on one another so fast that she was forced 
to beg the "Fair sirs" to speak one after the 
other. 

Her replies were taken down by Burgundian 
clerks seated in front of the judges and also by 
two English clerks who were concealed from 
sight. Afterward, the two records were com- 
pared. When there was any difference between 
them the replies that might be turned against 



234 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

the accused were the ones retained. Sometimes 
her answers were expunged altogether. She 
asked for a copy and none was given her. 

A spy in churchly dress was sent to make 
friends with her by pretending that he, too, 
came from Lorraine. She believed him and he 
heard her confession, and it is to be hoped that 
its purity entered his soul. To spy upon the 
spy, Cauchon gave orders that his conversations 
with Jeanne should be overheard, but the clerks 
to whom this command was given refused to 
obey. 

Visitors were allowed to come into the prison- 
er's cell and to revile and insult her. More 
than one handled her roughly. An English 
nobleman drew his dagger upon her. An iron 
cage was prepared to put her in, though it is 
not known that she really occupied it. She was 
made very ill by eating a fish sent her by Cau- 
chon. If this was an attempt at shortening the 
whole sickening farce the Bishop found him- 
self in bad odor with the English, for the Earl 
of Warwick told the doctors who were brought 
that "the King [Henry VI] would not for any- 
thing in the world that she should die a natural 
death. She had cost too dear for that; he had 
bought her dear and he did not wish her to 
die except by justice and the fire." 

Jeanne appeared before the court dressed in 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 235 

a page's suit of black. Trouble began almost 
immediately because she refused to swear that 
she would speak the truth upon all the questions 
asked her. 

"I know not upon what you wish to question 
me," she said; ^^perhaps you may ask me of 
things which I ought not to tell you." 

"Swear, We did then say to her ["We" be- 
ing Cauchon] to speak the truth on the things 
which shall be asked you concerning the Faith, 
and of which you know." 

"Of my father and my mother and of what 
I did after taking the road to France willingly 
will I swear; but of the revelations which have 
come to me from God, to no one will I speak 
or reveal them, save only to Charles, my King; 
and to you I will not reveal them, even if it cost 
me my head; because I have received them in 
visions and by secret counsel, and am forbidden 
to reveal them." 

This reply, in practically the same words, 
was given morning after morning when the oath 
was administered. 

It was followed by the story of her early life 
— her birth and baptism at Domremy, the 
names of some of her godparents, her religious 
training by her mother. Some one took occa- 
sion to ask her to repeat her Paternoster, This 
was done because it was supposed that a witch 



236 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

could only say the '^Our Father" backward. 
Jeanne looked on this command as irreverent 
or a trick and refused unless she be heard in 
confession. She refused also, as she had many 
times before, to give her parole that she would 
not try to escape. 

"If ever I do escape," she said, "no one shall 
reproach me with having broken or violated my 
faith, not having given my word to any one, 
whosoever it may be." 

The report continues: "And as she com- 
plained that she had been fastened with chains 
and fetters of iron, We said to her: 

" ^You have before and many times sought, 
We are told, to get out of the prison where you 
are detained, and it is to keep you more surely 
that it has been ordered to put you in irons." 

" ^It is true I wished to escape, and so I wish 
still: is not this lawful for all prisoners?' " 

The story of Jeanne's childhood was the sim- 
ple story of any peasant girl; she learned to spin 
and to sew and to mind the house. She attended 
to her religious duties. It was when the tale 
reaches her thirteenth year that she began to 
be unusual as she related the circumstances of 
her first hearing of the Voice from God. 

"It seemed to me to come from lips I should 



reverence." 



It was accompanied by a great light always 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 237 

to be seen on the side from which the Voice 
came; it gave personal instruction. Then it 
urged her again and again, month in and month 
out, to go into France. At last it told her how 
to obey the order. 

"Go," it said, "to Robert de Baudricourt." 
The story of her visit to Robert and her re- 
pulse; of her visit to the Duke of Lorraine; of 
her departure from Vaucouleurs dressed as a 
man, "armed with a sword given me by Robert 
de Baudricourt, but without other arms," 
brought her to the question that was asked her 
repeatedly. 

"Who counseled you to take a man's dress?" 
Possibly she comprehended that her dress 
was to be a subject of reproach to her through- 
out her life and to her memory for centuries 
after, and she bravely took the responsibility for 
it upon her own shoulders. She did suggest the 
sensible reason that as she was to live among 
men it was well that she should dress like them. 
But her reply was, "With that I charge no one." 
And she persisted in saying that she thought 
she had done no wrong in wearing it, and that, 
under similar circumstances, she would do it 
again. 

Her experiences at Chinon she told in detail, 
and invented an elaborate allegory of an angel 
giving a crown to the King at the moment of 



238 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

her first seeing him. By that she meant that she 
herself came to give him the heaven-sent news 
that the kingdom would really be his. The 
sign she gave the King she never would tell, 
but the King himself later told one of his gen- 
tlemen in waiting. It was her telling him of 
a wordless prayer that she read in his mind 
when first she made her way across the castle 
hall of Chinon amid the flaring torches, and 
saluted her Dauphin and then spoke with him 
apart. It was this sign that convinced him that 
she had come from God to his help. 

Just as questions about the sign given to the 
King and the responsibility for her wearing 
men's dress were put to her over and over again, 
so she was asked countless questions about her 
Voices. 

^^How long is it since you heard your 
Voices?" 

"I heard them yesterday and to-day." 

"At what hour yesterday did you hear them?" 

"Yesterday I heard them three times — once 

in the morning, once at Vespers, and again when 

the Ave Maria rang in the evening. I have 

even heard them oftener than that." 

"What were you doing yesterday morning 
when the Voice came to you?" 

"I was asleep; the Voice awoke me." 
"Was it by touching you on the arm?" 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 239 

'^It awoke me without touching me." 

*Was it in your room?" 

"Not so far as I know, but in the Castle." 

"Did you thank it; and did you go on your 
knees?" 

"I did thank it. I was sitting on the bed; 
I joined my hands; I implored its help. The 
Voice said to me: ^Answer boldly.' I asked 
advice as to how I should answer, begging it to 
entreat for this the counsel of the Lord. The 
Voice said to me: ^Answer boldly; God will 
help thee.' Before I had prayed it to give me 
counsel it said to me several words I could not 
readily understand. After I was awake it said 
to me : ^Answer boldly.' " 

A few days later, after renewed questionings 
about the Voices, Jeanne told for the first time 
that her Voices were those of Saint Catherine 
and Saint Margaret. All through her army 
career she had never spoken of her saintly 
friends but as "my Voices" or "my Counsel," 
though she refers to having talked about them 
during her examination at Poitiers. Now she 
added, "I have also received comfort from Saint 
Michael." 

The Maid was firm in her description of 
her visions. 

"Did you see Saint Michael and these Angels 
bodily and in reality?" they asked her. 



240 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

"I saw them with my bodily eyes as well as 
I see you," she answered. And again: ^^I see 
them always under the same form and their 
heads are richly crowned. '^ 

"What part of their heads do you see?" 

"The face." 

"These saints who show themselves to you, 
have they any hair?" 

"It is well to know they have." 

"Is their hair long or hanging down?" 

"I know nothing about it. I do not know 
if they have arms or other members. They 
speak very well and in very good language; I 
hear them very well." 

At another time she said that she had em- 
braced both Saint Catherine and Saint Mar- 
garet. 

"Did they smell good?" 

"It is well to know they smelled good." 

"In embracing them, did you feel any heat 
or anything else?" 

"I could not have embraced them without 
feeling and touching them." 

"What part did you kiss — face or feet?" 

"It is more proper and respectful to kiss their 
feet." 

Very distinctly Jeanne makes it understood 
that she considers that they are the means by 
which God conveys his messages to her. 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 241 

"Do you always do, always accomplish, what 
your Voices command you?" 

"With all my power I accomplish the com- 
mand that Our Lord sends me through my 
Voices, in so far as I understand them. My 
Voices command nothing but by the good pleas- 
ure of Our Lord." 

Dozens of questions tried to make the Maid 
admit that she had tried to bring luck to her 
armor or her banner by mysterious means; that 
she had abused the confidence of her followers 
by making them think that they would suffer no 
injury during an attack; that she had allowed 
people to worship her in idolatry; that she had 
presumed to have all knowledge, as when she 
had dictated a hasty letter to the Count of Ar- 
magnac telling him she would reply later to his 
questions to her about which of three Popes he 
should believe; that she had pretended to per- 
form cures by touching people with her rings. 

This gave her an opportunity to demand that 
her rings which had been taken from her be 
returned. 

Once more they harked back to her youth and 
asked her about the Fairy Tree and the foun- 
tain hard by and whether she had not tried to 
work mischief with a mandrake. Once in a 
while she retaliated upon her tormentors with 
almost equal suddenness, saying, for instance, 



242 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

"I know well that my King will regain the 
Kingdom of France. I know it as well as I 
know that you are before me seated in judg- 
ment. I should die if this revelation did not 
comfort me every day." 

There were men there present who lived to 
see Charles regain his kingdom and when Paris 
was taken by the French to recall her words : 

^^You will see that the French will soon gain 
a great victory, that God will send such great 
doings that nearly all the Kingdom of France 
will be shaken by them. I say it, so that when 
it shall come to pass, it may be remembered 
that I said it." 

When she made an assertion so unpleasant 
as this in the presence of her English and pro- 
English judges there must have been a grand 
rustling of silken gowns and a nervous readjust- 
ment of ruffs and a stirring of feet along the 
chairs and benches. The defendant had made 
enough prophecies that had proved to be correct 
for a new one to be listened to with respect. 

Often the examiners tried to catch Jeanne in 
a reply that would set her at odds with the 
Church. But the simple peasant girl was given 
words with which no fault could be found. 
For instance, she was asked: 

^'Do you know if you are in the grace of 
God?" 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 243 

This was a question hard to evade, for if she 
answered ^'Yes" she would almost be claiming 
saintship for herself; and if she answered ''No," 
then she was condemned out of her own mouth. 
Her answer was: 

"If I am not, may God place me there; if I 
am, may God so keep me." 

All sorts of gossip about Jeanne was brought 
before the court. Evidently the country had 
been scoured for any report that might Be 
twisted into a charge against her. To all this 
sort of thing Jeanne replied easily, "I know 
nothing of it." 

But when Charles of Valois was charged with 
heresy and schism she flamed into immediate 
indignation: "My King is the noblest of all 
Christians!" she answered loyally, though that 
same noble Christian was letting her go to the 
stake without a word of remonstrance. 

There was so little consistency in the behavior 
of Jeanne's examiners with regard to her atti- 
tude toward the church that one can only won- 
der that her strength did not give out long be- 
fore it did. She was in league with devils when 
she obeyed the words of her Lord told her by 
Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret; she was 
guilty of criminal disobedience when she leaped 
from the tower of Beaurevoir in spite of their 
admonitions. She was urged to look upon the 



244 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

Pope as her judge, yet when she asked to be 
taken before him she was given no assurance 
that it would be done. The reports show that 
she was beginning to see that she had no hope 
of being justly treated and so determined to re- 
peat her belief in the divine sending of her 
visions and Voices and not try to convince of 
her innocence men who would not be convinced. 

The only respite that was given the wretched 
girl was on the occasion of her being shown the 
instruments of torture made ready to wrench 
her limbs asunder. It may be that the brutes 
staged this exhibition merely to try to frighten 
Jeanne into submission and did not intend to 
run the risk of depriving the English of their 
expensive prisoner. Whether this was the case 
or whether even their cowardly hearts were un- 
equal to this baseness, the sight of the instru- 
ments did not terrify the Maid. Turning to the 
learned experts in various sorts of third-degree 
torture, Jeanne answered them with spirit: 

^^Truly if you were to tear me limb from 
limb and separate soul and body, I will tell you 
nothing more; and, if I were to say anything 
else I should always afterwards declare that you 
made me say it by force." 

Whereupon, ^^Seeing the hardness of her 
heart and her manner of replying. We, the 
Judges, fearing that the punishment of the tor- 



JEANNE'S TRIAL 245 

ture would profit her little, decided that it was 
expedient to delay it, at least for the present, 
and until We have had thereupon more com- 
plete advice." 

So this "salutary medicine for her soul" was 
not administered. But she was not to get off so 
easily with regard to the good doctrine sent her 
by the University of Paris. At great length the 
Doctors and Masters discussed all of Jeanne's 
errors in her relations to the Church. And 
after the long judgments of these worthies had 
been read to Jeanne, then all the Judges, 
Fathers, Lords, and Masters present, and there 
were over fifty of them, freed their minds con- 
cerning her heresies. And all of them advised 
that she should be again charitably admonished 
and warned before a final sentence be pro- 
nounced. 

Is it strange that her powers of endurance be- 
gan to give way? 



CHAPTER XXV 

^^I DID THEM BY GOD'S ORDER" 

There were to be still further strains upon 
Jeanne's infinite patience. At the final session 
of the court, she was preached at again and 
once more exhorted to yield herself to the 
Church. To the credit of the preacher be it 
said that he used simple words and did not try 
to confuse her. His illustrations of his mean- 
ing are such as she would understand, drawn 
from the life of officer of the king or of a 
soldier. At the end he urged her to save her 
soul and to redeem her body from death — "so 
I believe;" he had his doubts about the safety 
of her body, and well he might. 

"Do you not," she was asked, "think yourself 
bound to submit your words and deeds to the 
Church Militant, or to any other but God?" 

Her reply is commented upon in the margin 
of the original copy by the clerk who made it, 
as "Jeanne's proud answer." With what a last 
stirring of revolt against the injustice that was 
being shown her she must have declared: 

246 



^'I DID THEM BY GOD'S ORDER" 247 

*What I have always said in the Trial, and 
held, I still wish to say and maintain. If I were 
condemned, if I saw the fire lighted, the fagots 
prepared, and the executioner ready to kindle 
the fire, and if I myself were in the fire, I would 
not say otherwise, and would maintain to the 
death all I have said." 

It is good to hear once again such vigorous 
speech — the same vigor that made her say at 
other times, jokingly, that she would willingly 
have had her Burgundian neighbor's head cut 
off, or threaten Dunois with the loss of his head 
if he let Fastolf slip through his fingers, or tell 
the clerk in this same merciless court that if he 
did not write down her answers correctly she 
would pull his ears. She was young and a 
peasant. The wonder is that she spoke to royal- 
ties and nobles, to generals and judges with such 
unfailing courtesy. She was young and har- 
assed. The wonder is that she was not over- 
awed and browbeaten, that she still had a spark 
of spirit left. 

Another new experience was to be hers next 
day. On both sides of the beautiful Gothic 
south door of the church of Saint Ouen were 
erected platforms. Cauchon and a body of 
English and French prelates took their places 
on one; Jeanne and a priest named firard were 
stationed on the other. Before the saddened 



248 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

eyes of the Maid lay the burial ground (now 
a garden) and among its tombs stood a jeering, 
jostling crowd of English archers, Burgundian 
clerks, Rouen citizens, young and old, all alive 
with unfriendly curiosity and far different from 
the throngs that had crowded to touch the 
Maid's stirrup leathers at Orleans. 

It was not a reassuring sight, and it would be 
strange if a shiver of apprehension did not chill 
the girl, physically worn with privation and 
brutality and nervously unstrung by the mental 
torture inflicted by her cowardly tormentors. 
Her King and her party had abandoned her. 
Even her Saints had left her as it seemed, for 
she had always interpreted their promises that 
she would be delivered as meaning that she 
would be freed in this world rather than 
through the portals of Paradise. Yet she had 
sufficient spirit to answer firard by an appeal 
to the Pope, "to whom, after God, I refer me 
as to my words and deeds : I did them by God's 
order." 

Then she bravely took upon her own slender 
shoulders the burden of the accusations against 
her: "I charge no one with them, neither my 
King nor any one else. If there be any fault 
found with them, the blame is on me and no 
one else." And this she said believing that she 
would be burned at once for saying it unless her 



"I DID THEM BY GOD'S ORDER" 249 

saints intervened by a miracle. If Charles of 
Valois had ever said anything half as coura- 
geous, he would be a more agreeable character 
to remember. 

• But no admission that she made was satisfac- 
tory short of exact repetition of words which 
the brave-hearted girl would not repeat, and so 
Cauchon began to pronounce sentence against 
her. Two priests labored with her while he read, 
and all of a sudden her nerves snapped and she 
interrupted the Bishop and offered her sub- 
mission. 

Followed a scene of uproar. The English 
thought themselves cheated, for if Jeanne re- 
canted — declared that she yielded to the Church 
— then her punishment would be imprisonment 
and not death, and the English wanted above 
all else to have the Maid who had filled 
Charles's armies with confidence and their own 
armies with fear killed before she had a chance 
to perform any more such witchcraft. The 
Burgundians had the same reasons for desiring 
to be rid of her. Then there were some to 
whom burning was a horrible delight, and 
others who believed that she had truly outraged 
the Church and should have the severest pun- 
ishment, and still others who thought her a 
sorceress. 
The peaceful graveyard was filled on the in- 



250 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

stant with a yelling, stone-throwing mob. 
While they howled a short paper was read to 
Jeanne and repeated by her. It was about the 
length of the Paternoster, a witness who saw it 
said, though the document embodied in the offi- 
cial report is very much longer. It declared 
her submission to the Church. She never ad- 
mitted that she had not seen her saints and had 
not received direction from God through them. 
Some one guided her hand as she who could not 
write made the letters of her name, "Jehanne," 
and followed it with a cross. It is said that she 
smiled as she handled the pen. The English, 
seeing her expression, thought she was mocking 
them and shrieked insult. It has been suggested 
that she made the cross to indicate that she 
meant not a word of the declaration she was 
signing, as she had once testified with reference 
to the cross she was in the habit of putting on 
her letters: " . . . . sometimes I put a cross 
as a sign for those of my party to whom I wrote 
so that they should not do as the letters said." 

When the short recantation had been made, 
the Bishop went on with the sentence. It 
ended: ^'We condemn thee, finally, definitely, 
and for salutary penance, saving Our grace and 
moderation, to perpetual imprisonment, with 
the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction." 

When the sentence was imposed Jeanne 



"I DID THEM BY GOD'S ORDER" 251 

heaved a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over. 

^'Now, some among you people of the 
Church, lead me to your prisons, that I may no 
longer be in the hands of the English," she 
cried, showing in her first words how cruelly 
she had suffered from the vulgarities and bru- 
talities of her English guards. 

But Cauchon could not be fair with her. 

*Xead her back whence she was taken," he 
said. Decency meant nothing to him and honor 
less. It was more to his purpose that he was 
pleasing the English by giving the girl into 
their hands again to be maltreated. 

In the prison she was promptly visited by 
churchmen, who urged her to change at once 
into woman's garb. Jeanne agreed and in re- 
turn was promised the consolations of hearing 
mass and receiving communion. 

The dress that was given her was made by 
the Duchess of Bedford's tailor and was prob- 
ably something dark in color and ugly in cut, 
for one of the charges against Jeanne had been 
that she loved gorgeous raiment — as what young 
girl does not? Her hair, which had been cut 
round-about above her ears, showing like a 
page's below the edges of her cap, was shaved 
so that the woman's headgear of the moment 
might fit her head closely. 

So she was left with her former jailers more 



252 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

than ever ready to torment and abuse her. They 
did not fail to seize the opportunity. The 
promise that she was to go to mass was not kept. 
Among other indignities her keepers took away 
her woman's dress while she slept and gave her 
back her man's dress so that she had no other 
to wear. 

Of course this change was reported gleefully 
to her persecutors. Cauchon cried: "We've 
caught her this time!" Her opponents visited 
her and heaped reproaches upon her. She an- 
swered with self-respect, giving her reasons for 
her change of dress, and also admitting 'that 
when she had on the scaffold given her submis- 
sion to the Church she had spoken "from fear of 
the fire" — poor child ! She bravely insisted once 
more that God had sent her to do a certain work 
upon the earth, and that she knew that her 
Voices were those of Saint Catherine and Saint 
Margaret, "and that they come from God." 

"What was in the schedule of abjuration I 
did not understand," she said. "I did not in- 
tend to revoke anything except according to 
God's good pleasure. If the Judges wish, I 
will resume a woman's dress ; for the rest I can 
do no more," she concluded, evidently realiz- 
ing thoroughly now that her words had no 
chance of being received with fairness but 



"I DID THEM BY GOD'S ORDER" 253 

would be twisted to the purpose of her tor- 
mentors. 

^'I would rather die than endure longer the 
suffering of a prison," she admitted. Her power 
of endurance was broken. 

On the next day Cauchon declared with relish 
to the judges assembled to advise him that when 
he heard of Jeanne's relapse: ^We were eager 
to return and question her." He had to be eager 
about it; he was afraid of the English if he did 
not manage to dispose of her soon. 

He brought it to pass by citing her to appear 
at eight o'clock in the morning of the next day, 
Wednesday the 30th of May, in the Old Market 
Place of Rouen, in order that she might be de- 
clared to be "relapsed, excommunicate, and 
heretic," and handed over by the Church au- 
thorities to the secular authorities — that is, to 
the English who were in command in Rouen. 

It was Jeanne's death sentence. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

LEAPING FLAMES 

The martyrdom of a body that contains a 
great soul is always a political mistake. The 
crucifixion of Christ, the assassination of Lin- 
coln, the shooting of Edith Cavell, the burning 
of Jeanne d'Arc, took them from active work 
on this earth. It did not help their enemies. 
On the contrary, their dramatic removal fo- 
cussed feeling as nothing else could. The tor- 
tured young Jew became the Master of one of 
the powerful religions of the world; the great 
heart of the victim of an insane enthusiast united 
warring brothers; the injustice of the English 
nurse's execution filled her people with an irre- 
sistible determination to fight for the right; the 
ashes of the Maid of Orleans, floating on the 
surface of the Seine, wove themselves into a 
bond that made France a nation. 

JOAN OF FRANCE TO AN ENGLISH SISTER* 
In Memoriam. Edith Cavell, Nurse 

Pity had I for my France, my land 
In the days so far that be, 
*By«J. H. S." 

254 



LEAPING FLAMES 255 

Pity of heart and pity of hand — 

And who had pity on me? 
England's daughter, led out to die 

For a deed of merqr and truth, 
Guerdon of helper thou hast as I 

From the men that have murdered ruth. 
Sister of Joan by the pity, the spite, 

Joy yet in the pain be thine : 
We have armed our folk vi^ith a quenchless might, 

Fire of thy bosom and mine. 

On the morning of the appointed day, Jeanne 
confessed and received the sacrament. Then, 
dressed in a long robe, she was placed in a cart, 
accompanied by two priests and escorted by 
some eighty men-at-arms, and taken to the old 
Market Place. Pointing fingers, jeering laughs 
assailed her as she passed through the narrow 
streets. ^'The vanquished have no friends."* 
In the hour of her profoundest trial she was 
alone except for such comfort as her saints may 
have been giving to her soul. She wept bitterly. 

The spy who had falsely represented himself 
as a priest from Lorraine and had abused her 
confidence, is said to have had a seizure of re- 
morse as he saw her riding to her doom. He 
leaped into the cart and prayed for her for- 
giveness. 

Soldiers guarded the entrances to the Market 
Place. Behind them jostled the crowds pushing 

*Southey's "Joan of Arc." 



256 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

forward to see the gruesome sight. The win- 
dows of the buildings on the square were filled 
with morbid spectators and the roofs were cov- 
ered with men and boys who dared danger to 
gratify their curiosity. 

Against the wall of the market house was 
built a platform on which Jeanne was placed 
to be preached at yet once again. Not far away 
through the crooked thoroughfares stood in 
majesty the splendid grandeur of the cathedral 
where, a decade before, the English king had 
dismounted from his charger and entered to 
offer thanksgiving for his success in capturing 
the town. Perhaps Jeanne's prophetic eye saw 
through the mist of two future decades her own 
King Charles, mounted on a horse superbly ar- 
rayed in trappings of blue embroidered with 
gold fleur-de-lis, and accompanied by Dunois 
and the other captains whose companions she 
had been, entering the cathedral and kneeling 
as Henry had done, to offer thanks that he had 
once more come into his own. 

If she did and could have derived some com- 
fort from the inward sight it may have given 
her an instant's respite from the sight before her 
bodily eyes. For across the square stood an- 
other platform on which were gathered in the 
comfort of numbers the judges who had brought 
their victim to this pass; and between the two 



LEAPING FLAMES 257 

scaffolds rose the pyre on which she was to be 
done to death. It was made of plaster and was 
higher than was customary so that the execu- 
tioner might not be able to reach the sufferer 
and in some way perform the kindly act of 
shortening her agony. In its top was planted. 
a stake from which hung an inscription: 

JEANNE, WHO HATH CALLED HERSELF 
THE MAID. LIAR. EVILDOER. TRICK- 
STER. SORCERER. SUPERSTITIOUS. BLAS- 
PHEMER AGAINST GOD. PRESUMPTU- 
OUS. FAITHLESS TO THE RELIGION OF 
CHRIST. BOASTER. IDOLATER. CRUEL. 
DISSOLUTE. AN INVOKER OF DEVILS. 
APOSTATE. SCHISMATIC. HERETIC. 

Even if Jeanne had been able to read she 
would by now have been indifferent to this mass 
of lying insults. 

Followed a sermon by a priest who mounted 
upon the platform with her and again laid bare 
the error of her ways. The Maid listened with 
deaf ears. Her mind was on greater things. The 
judges across the square shed crocodile tears. 
So did Cauchon, the infamous Bishop of Beau- 
vais, to whom Jeanne publicly said: "Alas, I 
die through you, for had you given me over to 



258 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

be kept In the prisons of the Church, I should 
not have been here." 

He recovered from his emotion sufficiently 
to deliver the sentence of excommunication and 
to turn her over to the secular authorities. 
Then he and the other Churchmen, except two 
priests who were to remain with her to the last, 
left the square. 

As they left, Jeanne begged that each would 
say a mass for her ; she craved such pardon as she 
may have deserved from any whom she might 
have wronged. Some of the English seemed 
to think that she was speaking merely to put off 
the evil moment and one of them cried: ^'Have 
done, priests! Do you want us to dine here?" 

With that matters were hurried on. A paper 
cap inscribed 

"HERETIC. RELAPSED. APOSTATE. IDOLATER." 

was placed on her head, and she was taken from 
the platform and into the waiting cart. Legally 
she should have been taken to the City Hall, 
where the secular authorities should have passed 
sentence on her. But what was the use of wast- 
ing time on a mere formality? The Bailly of 
Rouen waved his hand. "Take her away." 
The slowly-pacing horse dragged the cart to the. 
foot of the mass of plaster, and the shivering 



LEAPING FLAMES 259 

girl was lifted to the top. She begged for a 
cross and a good-hearted Englishman made a 
small cross of two bits of wood. She held it 
up as long as her hands were free. When they 
were chained, she asked that a cross from the 
near-by church might be brought for her to 
gaze at. The Brother who held it before her 
testified that out of thoughtfulness she begged 
him to descend from the pyre before the mount- 
ing flames caught his robes. 

In her anguish she cried again and again 
upon her saints and begged Saint Michael to 
come to her help. Over and over she cried the 
name of Jesus and with one last appeal she died. 

There is a story of an English soldier who 
had sworn to bring a fagot to lay upon the pile. 
As he did so he fell in a stupor at the foot of 
the scaffold, and had to be carried away by his 
comrades. Later he owned that he believed 
himself to be grievously mistaken in his judg- 
ment of the Maid, for he had seen Jeanne's soul 
leave her body, ascending to Heaven in the form 
of a dove. 

The executioner parted the burning brands 
that the people — such of them as had had the 
fortitude to remain through the horrible scene 
— might see that she was really dead. Follow- 
ing his orders he cast her ashes into the Seine. 
Her heart, he told a Dominican to whom he 



26o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

went for consolation for his unwilling deed, he 
had been unable to destroy, either with oil or 
sulphur or charcoal. 

It was symbolic. For hers was one of the 
ever-living hearts that richer grow with time in 
men's esteem. 

Casimir Delavigne, a poet of the first half 
of the 19th century, has written the following 
description of 

THE DEATH OF JEANNE D'ARC* 

The crucifix with ardor brave Jeanne kissed; 

Her long locks floated at the breezes' will; 

To the scaffold's foot she came with measured tread; 

Nor showed a sign of fear. 
She mounted calmly, and, when at the top, 
Beheld the pyre prepared to cause her death, 
The hangmen waiting, torches all aflame; 
Then courage failed, the maid bent low her head, 

Convulsed with bitter sobs. 

Weep on, unhappy maid! 

Lament your youth destroyed; 

Youth harvested ere flower to fruit had come! 

Adieu! The fair skies fade; 

For none may death avoid. 

No more your smiling mountains shall you see, 
The church, the village, fields of Vaucouleurs, 

Home cot and meadows green, 
Your father dying 'neath the weight of woe. 

* English rendering by Ethel G. Stowe. 



LEAPING FLAMES 261 

Silence; an awful silence! Suddenly 

The fire bursts forth, the greedy flames leap high; 

The Warrior-Maid in courage is re-born! 

Through waves of scorching smoke Jeanne threatens still. 

Her half-consumed arm the English see. 

Why shrink in fear, O foe ? 

The arm no weapon holds. 
The flames o'eru^helm her, still with dying breath 
She murmurs — "France! My well-beloved King!" 



CHAPTER XXVII 

JEANNE COMES INTO HER OWN 

There were others beside the pitiable spy 
and the wretched executioner who were uneasy 
about the part they had played in sending 
Jeanne to her death. The English themselves, 
in the midst of their satisfaction, felt uncertain 
as to the justice of their proceedings. To 
strengthen their case they sent letters to all the 
rulers of Europe and all the prelates of the 
Church, informing them, lest they think tha^ 
personal or political passion had entered into 
Jeanne's trial, that all had been done by King 
Henry out of ardor for the welfare of the 
Church. 

The University of Paris felt uneasy, too. 
This uneasiness may have shown that the mem- 
bers of its faculties were somewhat conscience- 
stricken over condemning to a bitter death a 
young and defenceless girl. It is more probable 
that it indicates that the ecclesiastical bullies 
who now sent excuses to the Pope, the Emperor, 
and the College of Cardinals were trying to 

262 



JEANNE COMES INTO HER OWN 263 

offer arguments that would cause them to be 
held blameless for their persecution if later in- 
vestigation should indicate that the Maid's 
claims to have been the instrument of God were 
worthy of consideration. 

Jacques d'Arc, Jeanne's father, died soon 
after her execution, from shock and distress, it 
was said. His oldest son soon followed him. 
Jean, the younger son, who rose in the world 
and became Bailly of Vaucouleurs, appears to 
have been the prosperous member of the family. 
Pierre, who was captured at Compiegne with 
the Maid, was imprisoned for some five or six 
years, and then lived at Orleans with his mother, 
always willing, it seems, to accept a helping 
hand from the city fathers. 

About three weeks after Jeanne's burning, the 
English renewed several operations of the war 
which they had left pending while they at- 
tended to the matter of gathering the munitions 
of war and of ridding themselves of the girl 
who inspired their enemies with courage and 
themselves with fear. The outcome seemed to 
prove that the Maid had, indeed, been a fac- 
tor in the fighting, for after shifting fortunes, 
the English were able to crown nine-year-old 
Henry in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris. 

It was a brilliant function, the little king 
riding through the streets under a gorgeous 



264 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

canopy, and escorted by the powerful Paris cor- 
porations of trades and industries, always sure 
to make a brave showing at such times. Her- 
alds and trumpeters announced to the people 
the coming of their new lord. Within the 
cathedral there were many English nobles, as 
might be expected, but very few of the French 
nobility. Many of the great houses sent rep- 
resentatives, however, who showed their colors 
by wearing the family escutcheons. 

It was the custom after royal functions in the 
cathedral for money to be thrown broadcast 
among the crowd before the church. On this 
occasion the largesse was so ungenerous that the 
people declared that there would have been a 
more liberal showing after the wedding of some 
jeweler of the burgher class. 

King Charles, though as completely as ever 
under the influence of La Tremoille two years 
after the Maid's death, could not have had any 
real affection for him. De Richemont, the Con- 
stable with whom Jeanne had tried to reconcile 
Charles, inspired an attempt to assassinate the 
royal favorite. It did not succeed, but Charles 
appears to have made no objection to following 
the instructions of the Constable after that. 

It was through the generalship of de Riche- 
mont that the third part of Jeanne's prediction 
was fulfilled. Pressing on to Paris in 1436, the 



JEANNE COMES INTO HER OWN 265 

Constable entered the city on the opposite side 
from that on which Jeanne had made her fruit- 
less attempt, balked by the obstinacy of the King 
himself. The town made no resistance. Its citi- 
zens were tired of English rule; they were ill 
with hunger and so many had gone to other 
parts of France that there were thousands of 
vacant houses. The Constable drove about fif- 
teen hundred English into the tower of the 
Bastille at the eastern end of the town. It did 
not take long to starve them out of that refuge 
and they fled to the fields. 

As had been his custom when Jeanne headed 
his armies, Charles was not on the spot. It was 
a year later that he made his formal entry into 
the city that the Maid had promised him. 

So strong had the French become by 1440, or 
so weak the English, that it was no difficult mat- 
ter to negotiate for the return to his duchy of 
Charles of Orleans. With his coming and the 
establishment of his ducal court in the fair town 
of Blois the last of Jeanne's predictions was 
brought to pass. About the duke she had had 
more advices from her Saints than about any 
one else except her King, Jeanne once said. His 
banishment appealed to her imagination and 
her sympathy; the love that his people bore 
her, their Deliverer, was another bond between 
the poet-prisoner and the Maid of Orleans. 



266 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

With the coming of peace France grew pros- 
perous. Rebellious nobles and roving bandits 
came to the conclusion that the profits of the 
commerce that flourished in tranquillity were 
greater than the uncertain returns of guerilla 
warfare. The great rivers were opened to 
traffic from inland to the sea, and when, twenty, 
years after Jeanne left Domremy, the long-de- 
layed advance was made into Normandy, the 
province yielded without a struggled. When 
Charles entered Rouen's cathedral to give thanks 
for the gaining of his land, was he conscious of a 
gentle presence standing beside him as it had 
stood at Rheims? Or had he forgotten the Maid 
who never forgot him, never failed to give him 
the first fruits of her devotion? 

Perhaps a stirring of gratitude did move him, 
for during the next year he appealed to the 
Pope to cancel Jeanne's condemnation. It is 
more probable, however, that it was not grati- 
tude but selfishness that prompted him. It was 
not to the credit of the king of a great country 
that he had employed in his army a girl dis- 
credited by the church, stigmatized as a heretic 
and a witch. Such a blot should be wiped off 
his name — and incidentally hers. 

It is said that after the death of Jacques 
d'Arc, his wife, Isabelle, had made ceaseless ef- 
forts to have the sentence of the Rouen court 



JEANNE COMES INTO HER OWN 267 

reversed. It looks as if the Maid inherited her 
determination from her mother. So long ago 
as when Jeanne was born, Isabelle had earned 
the name of La Romee because of a pilgrimage 
she had made to Rome. That meant a long 
and dangerous expedition in those days of bad 
roads and bandits. When Jeanne was at Tours 
at the outset of her military career, Isabelle 
made another pilgrimage to Puy, not far away 
from Tours. That meant another long walk, 
though but a trifle compared with the expedi- 
tion to Rome. Still both journeys showed that 
when she made up her mind to do something 
she did it. It is quite possible that she made up 
her mind to restore her daughter's reputation 
and that she never ceased her efforts until she 
had interested the King. It is natural that she 
should have used the argument that would make 
the surest appeal to him — that Jeanne should 
be cleared because of the blot that her condem- 
nation made upon the fair sheet of his renown. 
But the matter was far from ended when 
Charles took it up. Pope Nicholas V did not 
want any sentence of the Inquisition pronounced 
wrong nor did he want to take any steps that 
would annoy the English. His successor, Calix- 
tus V, had much the same feeling but was will- 
ing to consider the application of a private 
person, such as Jeanne's mother. It was in 1455 



268 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

that Isabelle and her two sons, Jean and Pierre, 
went to Paris and in the cathedral of Notre 
Dame, supported by many friends of their own 
and of Jeanne's, by clergy and Armagnac ad- 
herents, appealed for justice to the Pope's com- 
missioners. 

The matter was made as comfortable as pos- 
sible for all those then living who had had any 
part in the proceedings of Jeanne's trial. It 
was formally declared that all responsibility 
should be thrown on Cauchon, the Bishop of 
Beauvais, and his companion judge because they 
were both dead. The faculty of the University 
of Paris was relieved of responsibility because 
it had been deceived. Then Commissions were 
sent to those towns of France where there were 
still living folk who had known the Maid. 

The questionnaire was on twelve points, and 
concerned the manner of life and the education 
of Jeanne, the esteem in which she was held, and 
events of her career. At Domremy the witnesses 
comprised some of Jeanne's godparents and sev- 
eral of her playmates. They were the simple 
village folk, laborers, thatchers, cartwrights, 
with the bell-ringer of the parish church, sev- 
eral priests, a notary, a King's Sergeant, two 
squires, a knight and a seigneur, whose testi- 
mony probably carried much weight at that 
time. 



JEANNE COMES INTO HER OWN 269 

They told of her birth, of her religious in- 
struction by her mother, of her household and 
out-of-door employments, of her profound de- 
votion, and her excellent character. The stories 
of her trips to Vaucouleurs to gain the help of 
Robert de Baudricourt come in this group and 
so do the tales of her companions on the way to 
the King, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poul- 
engy. The whole picture is one of straightfor- 
ward people giving a good "character" to some 
one they knew well. 

The depositions taken at Orleans, at Paris, 
and at Lyons show the Maid after she entered 
upon her career, and they are of especial im- 
portance in giving details of her military work. 
Here are people of eminence, officers of the 
King and generals in his army. They tell of 
her arrival at Chinon and her recognizing the 
Dauphin amid the throng of courtiers; of her 
examination at Poitiers; of her preparations at 
Tours; of the march to Orleans; of the sorties 
in which she took part and of the two-day fight 
that drew her blood, drove the English from 
the siege, and gave her the name of Maid of 
Orleans. 

Burghers of Orleans testified to her abste- 
mious habits, women to her purity of speech and 
act, her equerry and her page to her humanity 
and propriety, priests to her religious spirit. 



270 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

She was herself inspired and could inspire oth- 
ers is the sum of their reports. 

Many of the testimonies offered at Rouen give 
an uncomfortable feeling that if the witnesses 
are telling the truth now they must have had 
a remarkable change of heart since they took 
part in the trial that sent Jeanne to the stake. 
Almost all of them claim to believe that she 
died not a heretic, but an ardent Churchwoman 
and full of holiness. Fear of the English was 
an excuse made by most of them for their orig- 
inal attitude. 

There was a great deal of red tape still to be 
unwound before the good name of Jeanne could 
be cleared, but at last on July 7, 1456, the Sen- 
tence of Rehabilitation was read by the Arch- 
bishop of Rheims in the Archiepiscopal Palace 
at Rouen before the Pontifical Delegates and the 
Court. On the same day the prelates marched 
in solemn procession to the square before the 
church of Saint Ouen, where a sermon was 
preached for reparation as one had been 
preached before for persecution. Yet another 
sermon was preached the next day in the Old 
Market Place where the fire had done its fatal 
work, and a cross was erected in memory of the 
Maid and "for the salvation of her soul." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THROUGH THE CENTURIES 

Jeanne's life was one of contradictions. Born 
of a peasant family, she was a fervent sup- 
porter of the King. Yet it was the King's 
friends, the great nobles of his court, who did 
their best to undermine her influence and to de- 
ceive her. The people of low degree followed 
her with loving belief, though she was working 
to strengthen the power that held them in sub- 
mission. 

She was the soul of loyalty and truth and 
honor, characteristics of chivalry in its best as- 
pect. Yet representatives of chivalry found it 
convenient to treat her, an unprotected girl, as 
they might, perhaps, have hesitated to treat the 
wretched creature they falsely accused her of 
being. 

Jeanne was an ardent Catholic, devoted from 
her earliest years to the fulfilment of her reli- 
gious duties, yet it was a group of Burgundian 
prelate politicians who hounded her to her 
death. All honor to the Church's wisdom in 
placing her among the canonized. 

271 



272 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

After the Rehabilitation the folk who loved 
her dared to speak of her once more, since the 
Church had set its approval upon her and the 
King's party no longer tried to forget what she 
had done for Charles. But outside of Orleans, 
which never forgot and never failed to declare 
its love and gratitude, there was for a long time 
no public recognition of the Warrior Maid in 
the France that was growing into a nation be- 
cause of the impetus she gave it. 

It was more than four centuries later, when 
kings by divine right had alternated with rulers 
chosen by popular acclaim that the people who 
were "France" realized what Jeanne meant to 
them. There were some who adored her as a 
divine messenger; others to whom she appealed 
most as a representative of the plain people; still 
others who saw in her a symbol of the "new" 
woman who enters into the work of the world 
yet retains her modesty with her serenity. Still 
others bowed to her as a political organizer, 
though unconscious of what she was accomplish- 
ing; and others yet regarded her as expressing 
in herself the freedom of religious belief. 

To every one of these people she stood as she 
stands to-day, a romantic figure, summoning to 
high deeds and to the endurance of all suffering 
for conviction's sake. 



THROUGH THE CENTURIES 273 

^Through the dark a white light as of stars 
And a voice on the windy night calling; 

In her hand was a sword, and the bars 

Of her helmet were raised. The light falling 

On armor and steel showed the Maid, 

And behind rode a great cavalcade. 

In the blur of the trench's half-light, 

In the dread of an hour that was passing 

On the mystical wings of the night 

While the enemy cannon were massing 

And dawn promised death, like a flame 

She rode by; the men whispered her name. 

And the France that is breath of our breath 
Leaped alive in stout hearts overflowing; 

We were hers to the valley of death; 

We shall fight, we shall follow her, knowing 

On the trails where her white horses prance 

Ride the glory and spirit of France. 

Above all does Jeanne symbolize the inner 
nature of her country, the nature that she holds 
too sacred to show to every chance observer. 

"Half artist and half anchorite," Percy Mac- 
kaye describes ''France." t 

Lightly she wore her double mask, 
Till sudden, at war's kindling spark, 

Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque. 
Blazed to the world her single soul — 

Jeanne d'Arc! 

♦Elizabeth Reynard. 

t In "A Book of Verse of the Great War." 



274 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

The supporters of the early republics of 
France held Jeanne in high esteem, in spite of 
her love for the House of Valois. That incur- 
able revolutionary, Barbes, declared in the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century that "some day she 
would have a statue in our smallest villages." 
His prediction has practically come true to- 
day, though the movement in her favor has not 
come about through the republicans, but very 
largely in spite of their opposition. 

Just why they have objected is not easy to see. 
One reason probably has been because of the 
Catholic movement for Jeanne's canonization. 
There have been many republicans who thought 
that a government of the people and indiffer- 
ence to the Church should go hand in hand. 
Therefore when the Bishop of Orleans pre- 
ferred to Pope Pius IX a request that steps be 
taken toward the canonization of the Maid, that 
proceeding alone aroused the opposition of a 
certain group. Following hard upon this be- 
ginning came the Franco-Prussian War with its 
disturbances of thought. 

The matter of canonization, however, was not 
allowed to lapse. On January 27, 1894, Jeanne 
was pronounced "Venerable" by Pope Leo 
XIII. Fifteen years later thirty thousand 
French pilgrims witnessed in Rome the cere- 
mony of Jeanne's "Beatification." On April 6, 



THROUGH THE CENTURIES 275 

1919, Passion Sunday, Pope Benedict XV as- 
sisted at the final ceremonies of canonization. 

Jeanne the Maid is the patron saint of 
France. The war cry of Saint Denis has fallen 
into silence; the guardianship of Saint Michael 
is past; Saint Jeanne now receives the thanks of 
France because she has been the inspiration of 
France during the cruel years of the Great War. 
From general to poilu, the belief is strong that 
THE SOUL OF JEANNE d'Arc * led France to vic- 
tory. 

She came into the presence as a martyred Saint might come, 
Crowned, white-robed and adoring, with very reverence 

dumb, 
She stood as a straight young soldier, confident, gallant, 

strong, 
Who asks a boon of his captain in the sudden hush of the 

drum. 

She said: "Now have I stayed too long in this my place 

of bliss. 
With these glad dead that, comforted, forget what sorrow 

is 
Upon that world whose stony stairs they climbed to come 

to this. 

"But lo, a cry hath torn the peace wherein so long I stayed. 
Like a trumpet's call at Heaven's wall from a herald un- 
afraid, 

* Theodosia Garrison in "A Treasury of War Poetry." 



276 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

A million voices in one cry: 'Where is the Maid, thii 
Maidf 

"I had forgot from too much joy that olden task of mine, 
But I have heard a certain word shatter the chant divine, 
Have vi^atched a banner glow and grow before mine eyes 
for sign. 

"I would return to that my land flung In the teeth of war, 
I would cast down my robe and crown that pleasure me 

no more, 
And don the armor that I knew, the valiant sword I bore. 

"And angels militant shall fling the gates of Heaven wide, 
And souls new-dead whose lives were shed like leaves on 

war's red tide 
Shall cross their swords above our heads and cheer us as 
we ride. 

"For with me goes that soldier saint, Saint Michael of the 

sword. 
And I shall ride on his right side, a page beside his lord, 
And men shall follow like swift blades to reap a sure 

reward. 

"Grant that I answer this my call, yea, though the end may 
be 
The naked shame, the biting flame, the last, long agony; 
I would go singing down that road where fagots w^ait for 
me. 

"Mine be the fire about my feet, the smoke above my head ; 
So might I glow, a torch to show the path my heroes tread ; 
My Captain! Oh, my Captain, let me go back!" she 
said. 



THROUGH THE CENTURIES 277 

A group of French historians has done much 
to bring Jeanne before the minds of the people. 
Old records have been searched, old news-let- 
ters translated. Their work has been done at 
the same time as that of the church people, 
though along different lines. While there have 
been writers and orators who have spoken with 
as much venom as those clerics of Jeanne's own 
time, their very virulence has roused the inter- 
est they have tried to kill. By the time the Great 
War broke out royalist France and Catholic 
France needed no conversion and the heart of 
republican France beat so warmly for the Maid 
that it is indeed a small hamlet that holds no 
memorial of her. United by their tremendous 
national duty, men of widely differing opinions 
have fought for the nation whose seed Jeanne 
sowed. Now, the war over, they unite in praise 
of the national heroine. 

"When Rheims of the sacred vial and the sacring of so 
many kings is become a monument of German savagery as 
well as of Christian and of French civilization; when 
Jeanne's passionate love of, and martyrdom for, France have 
made her more than ever the symbol of France, have fused 
and identified this martyr of France with martyred France; 
after these years in which French cleric and French free- 
thinker have died in the trenches together for the same 
noble and imperishable ideal, this heroine of France becomes 
a saint of the Church, as she has long been a beloved figure 



278 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

to all who love France or heroic courage, unselfishness, and 
achievement." 

Jeanne d'Arc has been the subject of poem 
and story, of essay and of argument in many 
countries outside of France. England long ago 
ceased to think of her as a witch, and held her 
in high esteem even while people of her own 
country were still abusing her. Andrew Lang, 
a Scot, has defended her valiantly against Ana- 
tole France, whose cynical account of the ca- 
reer of the "little saint'* used merely as a luck- 
bringer by the Armagnacs, does gross injustice 
to Jeanne's powers. Southey and Coleridge 
have written long descriptive poems about her. 
She is a character in Shakespeare's "Henry VI." 
De Quincey speaks of the beauty of Jeanne's de- 
fense at her trial and the infernal horror of the 
attack against her. Green, the historian, sees 
her figure stand in purity against the greed and 
luxury and unbelief of her time. Carlyle won- 
ders what thoughts of triumph and of terror 
found their home in her simple spirit. 

Up to the time of the Great War the Ger- 
mans were not backward in expressing a favor- 
able opinion of the Maid in many a work of 
literary merit. Of these Schiller's dramatic 
poem was long considered an offset to Voltaire's 
attacks upon his countrywoman. As late as 1883 



; THROUGH THE CENTURIES 279 

a German writer declared that outside of Or- 
leans, Jeanne was not as dear to the French as 
she was to the Germans. Perhaps she was put 
with Shakespeare in the galaxy of naturalized 
Teutons! 

At the moment the Germans probably repu- 
diate this sentiment, but it is said that though 
they have shelled churches in French towns and 
hid trick bombs behind roadside crucifixes they 
have left memorials to the Maid uninjured. 
This, they say, is to impress on the French that 
the Germans are in sympathy with Jeanne be- 
cause she, like them, was an enemy of the Eng- 
lish. It is also said that the Germans insist that 
they chose to spare the equestrian statue of 
Jeanne before the cathedral of Rheims and that 
it was untouched by their shell fire because of 
their excellent marksmanship ! It would be hard 
to find a Frenchman who believes that this was 
their motive or the cause of the statue's immu- 
nity. 

There was a time when the Germans consid- 
ered Jeanne's career as worthy of being immor- 
talized in art. In German galleries there are 
not a few statues of her and paintings on sub- 
jects suggested by her spiritual or martial ex- 
periences. 

In America we are privileged to have Bas- 
tien Lepage's ^'Joan and her Voices" installed 



28o THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. The 
^^head of this figure is one of the few faces in 
historical painting which show real insight and 
attention to detail," says "Masters in Art." 
Anna Vaughan Hyatt's equestrian statue of 
Jeanne stands on Riverside Drive, in New York. 
It is a youthful and spiritual figure, at the same 
time filled with military vigor. 

Paris is rich in pieces of sculpture of interest 
to the Jeanne d'Arc enthusiast. Fremiet's statue, 
facing the gardens of the Tuileries, is the best 
known. There is another by Dubois in the Pan- 
theon, and here, too, is Lenepveu's famous ser- 
ies of paintings depicting the Maid at Dom- 
remy, leading an attack at Orleans, taking part 
in the coronation ceremonies at Rheims, and 
dying at the stake at Rouen. These paintings 
are rich in coloring, extraordinarily well-bal- 
anced, and show a spirit of loving appreciation 
for their subject that endears them to lovers of 
Jeanne. Of authentic portraits of Jeanne there 
are none. 

These are but a hint of the rich stores of lit- 
erature and art that await the seeker. Of musi- 
cal appreciation there is infinitely less. Gou- 
nod's mass, sung always at the celebration at 
Orleans on May 8, is the best known. It was 
composed as Gounod knelt in the cathedral of 
Rheims on the stone where the Maid knelt at 



THROUGH THE CENTURIES 281 

the coronation. A Russian interpretation of 
Jeanne's spirit is to be found in an opus of 
Tschaikowsky. A few minor works are less 
worthy of consideration. 

But above and beyond any appeal to the eye 
or the ear is the call that Jeanne makes to the 
spirits of men. She bids us give of our love and 
our loyalty and our courage to whatever mission 
we enter upon, and she herself is our example. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

JEANNE AND THE GREAT WAR 

When American soldiers first went to France 
in 1917 to do their bit in the Great War they 
were trained for their new work by French and 
British veterans skilled in all the methods of 
fighting that they had learned during the bitter 
months since the beginning of the war on the 
first of August, three years before. 

After a while we, on this side of the Atlantic, 
learned that our boys had finished their train- 
ing and were considered skilful enough to take 
over the Toul Sector. We did not know it was 
the Toul Sector; the censor would not tell us 
that because it would give information to the 
enemy if it were printed in our papers. We 
only knew that it was a ''quiet sector," and we 
read with a smile and a heartache letters from 
young soldiers who had spent the night pa- 
trolling No Man's Land, yet were not too tired 
in the morning to write home humorously about 
the "quietness" of trench raids and artillery at- 
tacks made by the light of star shells and such 
military fireworks. 

282 



JEANNE AND THE GREAT WAR 283 

When we did learn that the Americans were 
in the east-central provinces bordering on Lor- 
raine we realized that they had been entrusted 
with the protection of some of the most sacred 
lands of France. The generals who managed 
the military operations have told us that our 
ships were sent to the southern harbors because 
those farther north were already being used to 
their fullest capacity by the Allies. It was be- 
cause central and southern France was less 
crowded than northern France that General 
Pershing established his headquarters at Chau- 
mont, well to the southeast of Paris; that our 
staff school opened at Langres, a little south of 
Chaumont; and that the Tank Corps center was 
developed at Bourg, five miles from Langres. 

That is all true, but those who know French 
courtesy like to believe that there was more 
than military necessity in sending Americans 
into the eastern departments. For these depart- 
ments either border on or belong to ancient Lor- 
raine, a part of which was taken by the Ger- 
mans after the Franco-Prussian War. It was 
the loss of Lorraine and her neighbor, Alsace, 
that brought lasting bitterness to French hearts; 
the regaining of Alsace and Lorraine was the 
first thought of the French when the opening 
thrust of the Great War surprised them. What 
greater compliment, then, could be paid to their 



284 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

new associate from overseas than to give him the 
defense of the land nearest to the beloved pro- 
fvinces they hoped to regain? 

Toul was the town to which Jeanne was sum- 
moned by the young man who claimed that she 
had promised to marry him. At Nancy just 
east of it, she visited the Duke of Lorraine. 
Domremy itself, the birthplace of the patron 
saint of France, is situated on a road that fol- 
lows the valley of the Meuse almost north and 
south just back — that is, west — of the Ameri- 
can sector. 

The little cottage, for many years the shrine 
to which pilgrims of many nations have made 
their way, for two years opened its door to hun- 
dreds of thousands of Americans. These were 
not the tourists with whom the caretaker is fa- 
miliar. These new Americans came, like Jeanne 
herself, to fulfil a mission. Doughboys from 
ranches and from colleges, from coal mines and 
from offices gazed about them earnestly at the 
low-walled dwelling, as humble as that in which 
Lincoln first saw the light. To some Jeanne 
was a saint; to others a strange and wonderful 
girl; for all of them she had a vivid interest. 
Most of them never had heard of her before 
they went to their training camp, but not one 
of them reached France without knowing the 
words of the song that taught them that the 



JEANNE AND THE GREAT WAR 285 

Maid's spirit was thrilling France In the twen- 
tieth century as it had when she led her men in 
many a sally almost five hundred years before. 
Every day they sang: 

Joan of Arc, Joan of Arc, 

Do your eyes from the skies see the foe? 

Don't you see the drooping fleur-de-lis? 

Can't you hear the tears of Normandy? 

Joan of Arc, Joan of Arc, 

Let your spirit guide us through; 

Come, lead your France to victory, 

Joan of Arc, they're calling you. 

Sometimes the soldiers went on to the Fairy 
Tree and the well near by. Always they went 
into the church separated from Jacques d' Arc's 
house only by the graveyard. Jeanne testified 
that she had often seen her saints in the church 
among the faithful of Domremy who did not 
feel their presence. Who knows but her own 
presence was there among these strange young 
brown-clad boys, ready, indeed, to "guide them 
through," just as they were ready to give of 
themselves, even to their lives, for the country 
she had so dearly loved. In token of their will- 
ingness they hung on one of the altars the un- 
conquered flag under which they fought. 

"An American said to me, ^The American 
who has not seen Domremy has not seen 



286 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

France/ " writes the Senior Cure of the parish 
of Domremy-la-Pucelle; adding, ^'I was proud 
of that speech, for it was true." 

It was on the sixth of September, 1914, that 
the Senior Cure, Monsieur J. Collin, known to 
many American soldiers, made the solemn vow 
which follows: 

"In the midst of the danger that threatens our frontiers 
the parish of Domremy-Greux places itself especially under 
the protection of the Blessed Jeanne d'Arc, its illustrious and 
glorious child. 

"It asks her with entire confidence to ward off enemy in- 
vasion from her land, it begs her to protect its homes, its 
children, its soldiers; it puts in her care her birthplace, the 
church of her baptism and first communion, and her national 
monument. 

"Should this prayer be answered it promises solemnly to 
make a procession of gratitude every year in her honor. It 
shall go from the ancient church of Domremy to the church 
at Greux in memory of her many pilgrimages to Our Lady 
of Bermont. In addition it will consecrate to her, in mem- 
ory of this protection, a votive offering to be placed in her 
church. 

"To obtain this benefit it will begin today, September 6, 
at eight o'clock in the evening, a neuvaine of prayer in honor 
of the Holy Virgin and of the Blessed Jeanne d'Arc. . . ." 

This promise, made at the altar of Jeanne 
d'Arc, was ratified on October 19, 1914, by the 
Bishop of Saint Die. 



JEANNE AND THE GREAT WAR 287 

How the map of embattled France recalls 
Jeanne and her wanderings! Verneuil, where 
the Dauphin was defeated, has been the seat of 
the Motor Transport Corps of the American 
Expeditionary Forces. General Pershing's 
workrooms were in the town of Chaumont of 
which Jeanne's benefactor, Robert de Baudri- 
court, was Bailly in later life. General Bui- 
lard's position was just north of Vaucouleurs. 
The districts around Tours and Bourges, tapped 
by the Loire and its tributary streams, were great 
supply stations for the Americans. The Maid's 
northward march took her into the Rheims- 
Soissons salient at whose base stood Chateau- 
Thierry, a name never to be forgotten in Amer- 
ica. 

And Rheims — the most beautiful cathedral in 
France! To Jeanne, before the altar where her 
King's anointing meant the fulfilment of her 
mission, the building must have seemed built for 
a divine purpose and destined to last forever. 
Yet now: — 

* A winged death has smitten dumb thy bells, 

And poured them molten from thy tragic towers: 
Now are the windows dust that were thy flowers 

Patterned like frost, petalled like asphodels. 

Gone are the angels and the archangels, 
The saints, the little lamb above thy door, 

* "Rheims Cathedral, 19 14," by Grace Hazard Conkling. 



288 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

The shepherd Christ! They are not any more, 
Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells. 

But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom 
That old divine insistence of the sea, 

When music flows along the sculptured stone 
In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom 
Like faithful sunset, warm immortally! 

Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone! 

When bells were sending forth their call to 
prayer Jeanne often heard her Voices. Per- 
haps her own voice is now joined with those of 
her Saints in keeping alive the color and the 
music and the beauty of the ruined temple in the 
memories of those who loved it. 

On July 6, 1919, President Poincare went to 
Rheims and gave the city the cross of the Legion 
of Honor ^'in solemn homage to the heroism of 
your great city." 

The citation accompanying the decoration 
read : 

^'Martyr town, that an enraged enemy has de- 
stroyed because he could not continue to occupy 
it! Sublime population, that has given the great- 
est example of abnegation and disregard of peril 
and has displayed the most splendid courage in 
remaining for more than three years in continual 
danger, only leaving when ordered to do sol You 
have manifested a deep faith in the future of 



JEANNE AND THE GREAT WAR 289 

France,' " writes the Senior Cure of the parish 
in Rheims, whose statue is erected in the centre 
of the city." 

And now that the enemy is conquered her 
voice is lifted in another prayer. Long before 
the Great War England made honorable 
amends in words for her part in the crime of 
putting Jeanne to death. With the coming of 
the Great War she made amends in deeds. 
Jeanne's generous heart, as just as it was loyal, 
must have poured out its forgiveness from on 
high upon the hosts of her one-time foes. 

An English poet * puts into her mouth a 
noble appeal to France and England and Bel- 
gium to forego revenge upon their recent 
enemy : 

Who hath more motive for revenge than I, 

After the ruin of beloved Rheims, 

Where singing boys did w^arble pure as birds, 

Where in this armor I did crown a king? 

• •*....« 

Listen! The Powers of Darkness loosed this war; 

These hurl cathedrals down, women profane. 

Fear, then, lest these shall tempt you to repay 

Till you, at last they whelm in their own darkness. 

Nations at times, as men, may nobler stand, 

And finer in refusal than in act. 

* Stephen Phillips in "Armageddon." 



290 THE MAID OF ORLEANS 

And what is all the injury they have wrought, 
What flame of body or what woman's cry 
To the injury they do to their own souls? 

• •• • • * • • 

Go onward, onward, but forget revenge, 
For, so forgetting, you remember me! 

And this is one of the greatest reasons for re- 
membering Jeanne — that she waged war not for 
revenge but to bring order out of chaos; that 
she never sought revenge against the men who 
hindered her most sorely, who were intriguing 
against the King for whom she was working. 
She never had a thought of revenge for the mis- 
erable scrap of royalty who let her go to the 
stake after she had saved his kingdom for him. 
She never breathed a word of revenge against 
the base priest whose deceit and hypocrisy at- 
tacked her spirit as well as her body. For her 
revenge had no sweetness. It was not among 
the commands of her Lord. And to do what 
her Lord commanded — for that she was born. 



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